THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


I 


A 

SERIES  OF  DISCOURSES 

ON 

THE  CHRISTIAN  EEVELATION, 

ifc*  V  "* ;' 

VIEWED  IN  CONNECTION 

WITH 

THE  MODERN  ASTRONOMY. 


BY  THOMAS  CHALMERS,  D.  D. 

MINISTER   OF    THE   TRON    CHURCH,   GLASGOW. 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE 
AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY, 

150  NASSAU-STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


• 


CONTENTS. 


DISCOURSE   I. 

A  SKETCH  OF  THE  MODERN  ASTRONOMY. 

"  When  I  consicler  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon 
and  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained ;  what  is  man,  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him?" 
Psa.  8 :  3,  4 •  .  .  .  .  *  .  13 

DISCOURSE   II. 

THE  MODESTY  OF  TRUE  SCIENCE. 

"And  if  any  man  think  that  he  knoweth  any  thing,  he  knoweth 
nothing  yet  as  he  ought  to  know."  1  Cor.  8:2.  .  .  50 

DISCOURSE   III. 

ONJTHE  EXTENT  OF  THE  DIVINE  CONDESCENSION. 

"  Who  is  like  unto  the  Lord  our  God,  who  dwelleth  on  high,  who 
humbleth  himself  to  behold  the  things  that  are  in  heaven,  and  in 
the  earth!"  Psa.  113:5,  6 .86 

DISCOURSE   IV. 

ON  THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN'S  MORAL  HISTORY  IN 
THE  DISTANT  PLACES  OF  CREATION. 

'•Which  things  the  angels  desire  to  look  into."     1  Pet.  1  :  12.        117 


V 


4  CONTENTS. 

DISCOURSE   V. 

ON  THE  SYMPATHY  THAT  IS  FELT  FOR  MAN  IN  THE 
DISTANT  PLACES  OF  CREATION. 

"I  say  unto  you,  that  likewise  joy  shall  be  in  heaven  over  one  sin- 
ner thatlppenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons, 
which  need  no  repentance."  Luke  15  : 7.  .  .  .  150 

DISCOURSE    VI. 

ON  THE  CONTEST  FOR  AN  ASCENDENCY  OVER  MAN, 
AMONG  THE  HIGHER  ORDERS  OF  INTELLIGENCE. 

"And  having  spoiled  principalities  and  powers,  he  made  A  show  of 
them  openly,  triumphing  over  them  in  it."  Col.  2  : 15.  178 

DISCOURSE    VII. 

ON   THE    SLENDER   INFLUENCE   OF   MERE    TASTE 
AND  SENSIBILITY  IN  MATTERS  OF  RELIGION. 

"  And  lo,  thou  art  unto  them  as  a  very  lovely  song  of  one  that  hath 
a  pleasant  voice,  and  can  play  well  on  an  instrument:  for  they 
hear  thy  words,  but  they  do  them  not."  Ezek.  33 :  32.  .  .  204 

Scriptural  Illustrations,         .     (    .      .  .        .        >     .   •         •         245 

. 


- 


PREFACE. 


THE  astronomical  objection  against  the 
truth  of  the  gospel  does  not  occupy  a  very 
prominent  place  in  any  of  our  treatises  of 
infidelity.  It  is  often,  however,  met  with  in 
conversation;  and  we  have  known  it  to  be 
the  cause  of  serious  perplexity  and  alarm  in 
minds  anxious  for  the  solid  establishment  of 
their  religious  faith. 

There  is  an  imposing  splendor  in  the  sci- 
ence of  astronomy ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at,  if  the  light  it  throws,  or  appears  to 
throw,  over  other  tracks  of  speculation  than 
those  which  are  properly  its  own,  should  at 
times  dazzle  and  mislead  an  inquirer.  On 
this  account,  we  think  it  were  a  service  to 
what  we  deem  a  true  and  a  righteous  cause, 
could  we  succeed  in  dissipating  this  illusion ; 
and  in  stripping  infidelity  of  those  pretensions 


6  PREFACE. 

to  enlargement,  and  to  a  certain  air  of  phil- 
osophical greatness,  by  which  it  has  often 
become  so  destructively  alluring  to  the  young 
and  the  ardent  and  the  ambitious. 

In  my  first  discourse  I  have  attempted  a 
sketch  of  the  modern  astronomy,  nor  have  I 
wished  to  throw  any  disguise  over  that  com- 
parative littleness  which  belongs  to  our  plan- 
et, and  which  gives  to  the  argument  of  Free- 
thinkers all  its  plausibility. 

This  argument  involves  in  it  an  assertion 
and  an  inference.  The  assertion  is,  that 
Christianity  is  a  religion  which  professes  to 
be  designed  for  the  single  benefit  of  our 
world ;  and  the  inference  is,  that  God  cannot 
be  the  author  of  this  religion,  for  he  would 
not  lavish  on  so  insignificant  a  field  such 
peculiar  and  such  distinguishing  attentions, 
as  are  ascribed  to  him  in  the  Old  and  Xow 
Testament. 

Christianity  makes  no  such  profession. 
That  it  is  designed  for  the  single  benefit  of 
our  world,  is  altogether  a  presumption  of  the 
infidel  himself;  and  feeling  that  this  is  not 
the  only  example  of  temerity  which  can  be 


PREFACE.  7 

• 

charged  on  the  enemies  of  our  faith,  I  have 
allotted  my  second  discourse  to  the  attempt 
of  demonstrating  the  utter  repugnance  of  such 
a  spirit  with  the  cautious  and  enlightened 
philosophy  of  modern  times. 

In  the  course  of  this  sermon  I  have  offered 
a  tribute  of  acknowledgment  to  the  theology 
of  Sir  Isaac  Newton;  and  in  such  terms  as, 
if  not  further  explained,  may  he  liable  to 
misconstruction.  The  grand  circumstance  of 
applause  in  the  character  of  this  great  man 
is,  that  unseduced  by  all  the  magnificence  of 
his  own  discoveries,  he  had  a  solidity  of  mind 
which  could  resist  their  fascination,  and  keep 
him  in  steady  attachment  to  tha,t  book  whose 
general  evidences  stamped  upon  it  the  im- 
press of  a  real  communication  from  heaven. 
This  was  the  sole  attribute  of  his  theology 
which  I  had  in  my  eye  when  I  presumed  to 
eulogize  it.  I  do  not  think  that,  amid  the 
distraction  and  the  engrossment  of  his  other 
pursuits,  he  has  at  all  times  succeeded  in  his 
interpretation  of  the  book ;  else  he  would 
never,  in  my  apprehension,  have  abetted  the 
leading  doctrine  of  a  sect  or  a  system  which 


ioctrine  of 


8  PREFACE. 

. 

has  now  nearly  dwindled  away  from  public 
observation. 

In  my  third  discourse  I  am  silent  as  to 
the  assertion  and  attempt  to  combat  the  infer- 
ence that  is  founded  on  it.  I  insist,  that 
upon  all  the  analogies  of  nature  and  of  prov- 
idence, we  can  lay  no  limit  on  the  conde- 
scension of  God,  or  on  the  multiplicity  of  his 
regards  even  to  the  very  humblest  depart- 
ments of  creation;  and  that  it  is  not  for  us, 
who  see  the  evidences  of  divine  wisdom  and 
care  spread  in  such  exhaustless  profusion 
around  us,  to  say  that  the  Deity  would  not 
lavish  all  the  wealth  of  his  wondrous  attri- 
butes on  the  salvation  even  of  our  solitary 
species. 

At  this  point  of  the  argument  I  trust  that 
the  intelligent  reader  may  be  enabled  to  per- 
ceive, in  the  adversaries  of  the  gospel,  a  two- 
fold dereliction  from  the  maxims  of  the  Baco- 
nian philosophy:  that,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  assertion  which  forms  the  groundwork  of 
their  argument,  is  gratuitously  fetched  out  of 
an  unknown  region  where  they  are  .utterly 
abandoned  by  the  light  of  experience;  and 


PREFACE.  9 

that,  in  the  second  instance,  the  inference  they 
urge  from  it,  is  in  the  face  of  manifold  and 
undeniable  truths,  all  lying  within  the  safe 
and  accessible  field  of  human  observation. 

In  my  subsequent  discourses,  I  proceed  to 
the  informations  of  the  record.  The  infidel 
objection  drawn  from  astronomy  may  be 
considered  as  by  this  time  disposed  of,  and  if 
we  have  succeeded  in  clearing  it  away,  so  as 
to  deliver  the  Christian  testimony  from  all 
discredit  upon  this  ground,  then  may  we  sub- 
mit,  on  the  strength  of  other  evidences,  to  be 
guided  by  its  information.  We  shall  thus 
learn  that  Christianity  has  a  far  more  exten- 
sive bearing  on  the  other  orders  of  creation, 
than  the  infidel  is  disposed  to  allow;  and 
whether  he  will  own  the  authority  of  this 
information  or  not,  he  will  at  least  be  forced 
to  admit  that  the  subject  matter  of  the  Bible 
itself  is  not  chargeable  with  that  objection 
which  he  has  attempted  to  fasten  upon  it. 

Thus,  had  my  only  object  been  the  refu- 
tation of  the  infidel  argument,  1  might  have 
spared  the  last  discourses  of  the  volume  alto- 
gether. But  the  tracks  of  scriptural  informa- 


10  PREFACE. 

tion  to  which  they  directed  me,  I  considered 
as  worthy  of  prosecution  on  their  own  ac- 
count; and  I  do  think  that  much  may  be 
gathered  from  these  less  observed  portions  of 
the  field  of  revelation,  to  cheer  and  to  elevate 
and  to  guide  the  believer. 

But  in  the  management  of  such  a  discus- 
sion as  this,  though  for  a  great  degree  of  this 
effect  it  would  require  to  be  conducted  in  a 
far  higher  style  than  I  am  able  to  sustain, 
the  taste  of  the  human  mind  may  be  regaled, 
and  its  understanding  put  into  a  state  of  the 
most  agreeable  exercise.  Now,  this  is  quite 
distinct  from  the  conscience  being  made  to 
feel  the  force  of  a  personal  application ;  nor 
could  I  either  bring  this  argument  to  its  close 
in  the  pulpit,  or  offer  it  to  the  general  notice 
of  the  world,  without  adverting  in  the  last 
discourse  to  a  delusion  which,  I  fear,  is  carry, 
ing  forward  thousands,  and  tens  of  thousands, 
to  an  undone  eternity. 

I  have  closed  the  volume  with  an  appen- 
dix of  scriptural  authorities.  I  found  that  I 
could  not  easily  interweave  them  in  the  tex- 
ture of  the  work,  and  have  therefore  thought 


i 


PREFACE.  11 

fit  to  present  them  in  a  separate  form.  I 
look  for  a  twofold  benefit  from  this  exhibition : 
first,  on  those  more  general  readers  who  are 
ignorant  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of  the  richness 
and  variety  which  abound  in  them ;  and 
secondly,  on  those  narrow  and  intolerant  pro- 
fessors who  take  an  alarm  at  the  very  sound 
and  semblance  of  philosophy,  and  feel  as 
if  there  was  an  utter  irreconcilable  antip- 
athy between  its  lessons  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  soundness  and  piety  of  the  Bible  on 
the  other.  It  were  well,  I  conceive,  for  our 
cause,  that  the  latter  could  become  a  little 
more  indulgent  on  this  subject;  that  they 
gave  up  a  portion  of  those  ancient  and  hered- 
itary prepossessions,  which  go  so  far  to  cramp 
and  to  enthral  them ;  that  they  would  suffer 
theology  to  take  that  wide  range  of  argument 
and  of  illustration  which  belongs  to  her,  sand 
that  less  sensitively  jealous  of  any  desecration 
being  brought  upon  the  Sabbath  or  the  pulpit, 
they  would  suffer  her  freely  to  announce  all 
those  truths  which  either  serve  to  protect 
Christianity  from  the  contempt  of  science,  or 
to  protect  the  teachers  of  Christianity  from 


12  PREFACE. 

those  invasions  which  are  practised  both  on 
the  sacredness  of  the  office,  and  on  the  solitude 
of  its  devotional  and  intellectual  labors. 

I  shall  only  add,  for  the  information  of 
readers  at  a  distance,  that  these  discourses 
were  chiefly  delivered  on  the  occasion  of  the 
week-day  sermon  that  is  preached  in  rotation 
by  the  ministers  of  Glasgow. 


, 


DISCOURSES 

ON 

THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION 


DISCOURSE    I. 

A  SKETCH  OF  THE  MODERN  ASTRONOMY. 

"  When  I  consider  the  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the 
moon  and  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained :  What  is  man,  that 
thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest 
him?"  Psalm  8: 3,  4. 

IN  the  reasonings  of  the  apostle  Paul,  we 
cannot  fail  to  observe  how  studiously  he  ac- 
commodates his  arguments  to  the  pursuits,  or 
principles,  or  prejudices  of  the  people  whom 
he  was  addressing.  He  often  made  a  favorite 
opinion  of  their  own  the  starting  point  of  his 
explanation,  and  educing  a  dexterous  hut 
irresistible  train  of  argument  from  some  prin- 
ciple upon  which  each  of  the  parties  had  a 
common  understanding,  did  he  force  them  out 
of  all  their  opposition  by  a  weapon  of  their 


14  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSED. 

own  choosing;  nor  did  he  scruple  to  avail 
himself  of  a  Jewish  peculiarity,  or  a  heathen 
superstition,  or  a  quotation  from  Greek  poetry, 
hy  which  he  might  gain  the  attention  of  those 
whom  he  labored  to  convince,  and  hy  the 
skilful  application  of  which  he  might  "  shut 
them  up  unto  the  faith." 

Now,  when  Paul  was  thus  addressing  one 
class  of  an  assembly,  or  congregation,  another 
class  might,  for  the  time,  have  been  shut  out 
of  all  direct  benefit  and  application  from  his 
arguments.  When  he  wrote  an  epistle  to  a 
mixed  assembly  of  Christianized  Jews  and 
Gentiles,  he  had  often  to  direct  such  a  pro- 
cess  of  argument  to  the  former,  as  the  latter 
would  neither  require  nor  comprehend.  Now, 
what  should  have  been  the  conduct  of  the 
Gentiles  at  the  reading  of  that  part  of  the 
epistle  which  bore  an  almost  exclusive  refer- 
ence to  the  Jews  ?  Should  it  be  impatience 
at  the  hearing  of  something  for  which  they 
had  no  relish  or  understanding?  Should  it 
be  a  fretful  disappointment,  because  every 
thing  that  was  said  was  not  said  for  their 
edification?  Should  it  be  angry  discontent 
with  the  apostle,  because,  leaving  them  in 
the  dark,  he  had  brought  forward  nothing  for 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  15 

them,  through  the  whole  extent  of  so  many 
successive  chapters  ?  Some  of  them  may  have 
felt  in  this  way;  hut  surely  it  would  have 
heen  vastly  more  Christian  to  have  sat  with 
meek  and  unfeigned  patience,  and  to  have 
rejoiced  that  the  great  apostle  had  undertaken 
the  management  of  those  obstinate  prejudices 
which  kept  back  so  many  human  beings  from 
the  participation  of  the  gospel.  And  should 
Paul  have  had  reason  to  rejoice,  that  by  the 
success  of  his  arguments  he  had  reconciled 
one  or  any  number  of  Jews  to  Christianity, 
then  it  was  the  part  of  these  G-entiles,  though 
receiving  no  direct  or  personal  benefit  from 
the  arguments,  to  have  blessed  G-od,  and 
rejoiced  aiong  with  him. 

Conceive  that  Paul  were  at  this  moment 
alive,  and  zealously  engaged  in  the  work  of 
pressing  the  Christian  religion  on  the  accept- 
ance of  the  various  classes  of  society.  Should 
he  not  still  have  acted  on  the  principle  of 
being  all  things  to  all  men?  Should  he  not 
have  accommodated  his  discussion  to  the  pre- 
vailing taste  and  literature  and  philosophy  of 
the  times?  Should  he  not  have  closed  with 
the  people  whom  he  was  addressing,  on  some 
favorite  principle  of  their  own ;  and,  in  the 


»'  ;•-,   ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

prosecution  of  this  principle,  might  he  not 
have  got  completely  beyond  the  comprehen- 
sion of  a  numerous  class  of  zealous,  humble, 
and  devoted  Christians  ?  Now,  the  question 
is  not,  how  these  would  conduct  themselves 
in  such  circumstances ;  but,  how  should  they 
do  it?  Would  it  be  right  in  them  to  sit 
with  impatience,  because  the  argument  of 
the  apostle  contained  in  it  nothing  in  the 
way  of  comfort  or  edification  to  themselves  ? 
Should  not  the  benevolence  of  the  gospel  give 
a  different  direction  to  their  feelings  ?  And, 
instead  of  that  narrow,  exclusive,  and  monop- 
olizing spirit,  which  I  fear  is  too  character- 
istic of  the  more  declared  professors  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  ought  they  not  to  be 
patient,  and  to  rejoice,  when  to  philosophers, 
and  to  men  of  literary  accomplishment,  and 
to  those  who  have  the  direction  of  the  public 
taste  among  the  upper  walks  of  society,  such 
arguments  are  addressed  as  may  bring  home 
to  their  acceptance  also,  "  the  words  of  this 
life  ?"  It  is  under  the  impulse  of  these  con- 
siderations that  I  have,  with  some  hesitation, 
prevailed  upon  myself  to  attempt  an  argu- 
ment which  I  think  fitted  to  soften  and  sub- 
due those  prejudices  which  lie  at  the  bottom 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  17 

of  what  may  be  called  the  infidelity  of  nat- 
ural science ;  if  possible,  to  bring  over  to  the 
humility  of  the  gospel  those  who  expatiate 
with  delight  on  the  wonders  and  sublimities 
of  creation,  and  to  convince  them  that  a 
loftier  wisdom  still  than  that  even  of  their 
high  and  honorable  acquirements,  is  the  wis- 
dom of  him  who  is  resolved  to  know  nothing 
but  Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified. 

It  is  truly  a  most  Christian  exercise,  to 
extract  a  sentiment  of  piety  from  the  works 
and  the  appearances  of  nature.  It  has  the 
authority  of  the  sacred  writers  upon  its  side, 
and  even  our  Saviour  himself  gives  it  the 
weight  and  the  solemnity  of  his  example: 
"  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field — ev£n  Sol- 
omon, in  all  his  glory,  was  not  arrayed  like 
one  of  these."  He  expatiates  on  the  beauty 
of  a  single  flower,  and  draws  from  it  the 
delightful  argument  of  confidence  in  God. 
He  gives  us  to  see  that  taste  may  be  com- 
bined with  piety,  and  that  the  same  heart 
may  be  occupied  with  all  that  is  serious  m 
the  contemplations  of  religion,  and  be  at  the 
same  time  alive  to  the  charms  and  loveliness 
of  nature. 

The  psalmist  takes  a  still .  loftier  flight. 


18  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

He  leaves  the  world,  and  lifts  his  imagination 
to  that  mighty  expanse  which  spreads  above 
it  and  around  it.  He  wings  his  way  through 
space,  and  wanders  in  thought  over  its  im- 
measurable regions.  Instead  of  a  dark  and 
unpeopled  solitude,  he  sees  it  crowded  with 
splendor,  and  filled  with  the  energy  of  the 
divine  presence.  Creation  rises  in  its  im- 
mensity before  him,  and  the  world,  with  all 
which  it  inherits,  shrinks  into  littleness  at  a 
contemplation  so  vast  and  so  overpowering. 
He  wonders  that  he  is  not  overlooked  amid 
the  grandeur  and  the  variety  which  are  on 
every  side  of  him,  and  passing  upward  from 
the  majesty  of  nature  to  the  majesty  of  na- 
ture's Architect,  he  exclaims,  "  What  is  man, 
that  thou  art  mindful  of  him;  or  the  son  of 
man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?" 

It  is  not  for  us  to  say  whether  inspiration 
revealed  to  the  psalmist  the  wonders  of  the 
modern  astronomy.  But  even  though  the 
mind  be  a  perfect  stranger  to  the  science  of 
these  enlightened  times,  the  heavens  present 
a  great  and  an  elevating  spectacle — an  im- 
mense concave  reposing  upon  the  circular 
boundary  of  the  world,  and  the  innumerable 
lights  which  are  suspended  from  on  high, 


MODERN   ASTRONOMY.  19 

moving  with  solemn  regularity  along  its  sur- 
face. It  seems  to  have  heen  at  night  that  the 
piety  of  the  psalmist  was  awakened  hy  this 
contemplation,  when  the  moon  and  the  stars 
were  visible,  and  not  when  the  sun  had  risen 
in  his  strength,  and  thrown  a  splendor  around 
him  which  bore  down  and  eclipsed  all  the 
lesser  glories  of  the  firmament.  And  there  is 
much  in  the  scenery  of  a  nocturnal  sky  to  lift 
the  soul  to  pious  contemplation.  That  moon, 
and  these  stars,  what  are  they?  They  are 
detached  from  the  world,  and  they  lift  you 
above  it.  You  feel  withdrawn  from  the  earth, 
and  rise  in  lofty  abstraction  above  this  little 
theatre  of  human  passions  and  human  anxi- 
eties. The  mind  abandons  itself  to  reverie, 
and  is  transferred  in  the  ecstasy  of  its 
thoughts,  to  distant  and  unexplored  regions. 
It  sees  nature  in  the  simplicity  of  her  great 
ele'ments,  and  it  sees  the  God  of  nature  in- 
vested with  the  high  attributes  of  wisdom 
and  majesty. 

But  what  can  these  lights  be  ?  The  curi- 
osity of  the  human  mind  is  insatiable,  and 
the  mechanism  of  these  wonderful  heavens 
has,  in  all  ages,  been  its  subject  and  its  em- 
ployment. It  has  been  reserved  for  these  lat- 


20  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ter  times  to  resolve  this  great  and  interesting 
question.  The  sublimest  powers  of  philoso- 
phy have  been  called  to  the  exercise,  and 
astronomy  may  now  he  looked  upon  as  the 
most  certain  and  best  established  of  the  sci- 
ences. • 

We  all  know  that  every  visible  object 
appears  less  in  magnitude  as  it  recedes  from 
the  eye.  The  lofty  vessel,  as  it  retires  from 
the  coast,  shrinks  into  littleness,  and  at  last 
appears  in  the  form  of  a  small  speck  on  the 
verge  of  the  horizon.  The  eagle  with  its 
expanded  wings  is  a  noble  object;  but  when 
it  takes  its  flight  into  the  upper  regions  of  the 
air,  it  becomes  less  to  the  eye,  and  is  seen 
like  a  dark  spot  upon  the  vault  of  heaven. 
The  same  is  true  of  all  magnitude.  The 
heavenly  bodies  appear  small  to  the  eye  of 
an  inhabitant  of  this  earth,  only  from  the 
immensity  of  their  distance.  When  we  talk 
of  hundreds  of  millions  of  miles,  it  is  not  to 
be  listened  to  as  incredible.  For  remember 
that  we  are  talking  of  those  bodies  which  are 
scattered  over  the  immensity  of  space,  and 
that  space  knows  no  termination.  The  con- 
ception is  great  and  difficult,  but  the  truth 
is  unquestionable.  By  a  process  of  measure- 


' 

MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  21 

ment  which  it  is  unnecessary  at  present  to 
explain,  we  have  ascertained  first  the  dis- 
tance, and  then  the  magnitude  of  some  of 
those  bodies  which  roll  in  the  firmament; 
that  the. sun,  which  presents  itself  to  the  eye 
under  so  diminutive  a  form,  is  really  a  globe, 
exceeding,  by  many  thousands  of  times,  the 
dimensions  of  the  earth  which  we  inhabit; 
that  the  moon  itself  has  the  magnitude  of  a 
world ;  and  that  even  a  few  of  those  stars 
which  appear  like  so  many  lucid  points  to 
the  unassisted  eye  of  the  observer,  expand 
into  large  circles  upon  the  application  of  the 
telescope,  and  are  some  of  them  much  larger 
than  the  ball  which  we  tread  upon,  and  to 
which  we  proudly  apply  the  denomination  of 
the  universe. 

Now,  what  is  the  fair  and  obvious  pre- 
sumption ?  The  world  in  which  we  live  is  a 
round  ball  of  a  determined  magnitude,  and 
occupies  its  own  place  in  the  firmament. 
But  when  we  explore  the  unlimited  tracks 
of  that  space  which  is  everywhere  around 
us,  we  meet  with  other  balls  of  equal  or  supe- 
rior magnitude,  and  from  which  our  earth 
would  either  be  invisible,  or  appear  as  small 
as  any  of  those  twinkling  stars  which  are 


22  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

seen  on  the  canopy  of  heaven.  Why  then 
suppose  that  this  little  spot,  little  at  least  in 
the  immensity  which  surrounds  it,  should  be 
the  exclusive  ahode  of  life  and  of  intelli- 
gence? What  reason  to  think  that  those 
mightier  glohes  which  roll  in  other  parts  of 
creation,  and  which  we  have  discovered  to 
be  worlds  in  magnitude,  are  not  also  worlds 
in  use  and  in  dignity?  Why  should  we 
think  that  the  great  Architect  of  nature, 
supreme  in  wisdom  as  he  is  in  power,  would 
call  these  stately  mansions  into  existence  and 
leave  them  unoccupied  ?  When  we  cast  our 
eye  over  the  broad  sea,  and  look  at  the  coun- 
try on  the  other  side,  we  see  nothing  but  the 
blue  land  stretching  obscurely  over  the  dis- 
tant horizon.  We  are  too  far  away  to  per- 
ceive the  richness  of  its  scenery,  or  to  hear 
the  sound  of  its  population.  Why  not  extend 
this  principle  to  the  still  more  distant  parts 
of  the  universe?  What  though,  from  this 
remote  point  of  observation,  we  can  see  noth- 
ing but  the  naked  roundness  of  yon  planetary 
orbs  ?  Are  we  therefore  to  say,  that  they  are 
so  many  vast  and  unpeopled  solitudes ;  that 
desolation  reigns  in  every  part  of  the  universe 
but  ours ;  that  the  whole  energy  of  the  divine 


MODEil-N    Aal'flONOMY.  23 

attributes  is  expended  on  one  insignificant 
corner  of  these  mighty  works ;  and  that  to 
this  earth  alone  belongs  the  bloom  of  vegeta- 
tion, or  the  blessedness  of  life,  or  the  dignity 
of  rational  and  immortal  existence  ? 

But  this  is  not  all.  We  have  something 
more  than  the  mere  magnitude  of  the  planets 
to  allege,  in  favor  of  the  idea  that  they  are 
inhabited.  We  know  that  this  earth  turns 
round  upon  itself,  and  we  observe  that  all 
these  celestial  bodies,  which  are  accessible  to 
such  an  observation,  have  the  same  move- 
ment. W '  know  that  the  earth  performs  a 
yearly  revolution  round  the  sun ;  and  we  can 
detect  in  all  the  planets  which  compose  our 
system,  a  revolution  of  the  same  kind,  and 
under  the  same  circumstances.  They  have 
the  same  succession  of  day  and  night.  They 
have  the  same  agreeable  vicissitude  of  the 
seasons.  To  them  light  and  darkness  succeed 
each  other ;  and  the  gayety  of  summer  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  dreariness  of  winter.  To  each 
o£  them  the  heavens  present  as  varied  and 
magnificent  a  spectacle;  and  this  earth,  the 
encompassing  of  which  would  require  the 
labor  of  years  from  one  of  its  puny  inhabi- 
tants, is  but  one  of  the  lesser  lights  which 


24      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

sparkle  in  their  firmament.  To  them,  as 
well  as  to  us,  has  God  divided  the  light  from 
the  darkness,  and  he  has  called  the  light 
day,  and  the  darkness  he  has  called  night. 
He  has  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the-  firma- 
ment of  their  heaven,  to  divide  the  day  from 
the  night ;  and  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for 
seasons,  and  for  days,  and  for  years ;  and  let 
them  be  for  lights  in  the  firmament  of  heaven, 
to  give  lights  upon  their  earth;  and  it  was 
so.  And  God  has  also  made  to  them  great 
lights.  To  all  of  them  he  has  given  the  sun, 
to  rule  the  day ;  and  to  many  of  them  has  he 
given  moons,  to  rule  the  night.  To  them  he 
has  made  the  stars  also.  And  God  has  set 
them  in  the  firmament  of  heaven,  to  give 
light  unto  their  earth;  and  to  rule  over  the 
day  and  over  the  night,  and  to  divide  the 
light  from  the  darkness ;  and  God  has  seen 
that  it  was  good. 

In  all  these  greater  arrangements  of  divine 
wisdom,  we  can  see  that  God  has  done  the 
same  things  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
planets,  that  he  has  done  for  the  earth  which 
we  inhabit.  And  shall  we  say  that  the  resem- 
blance stops  here,  because  we  are  not  in  a 
situation  to  observe  it?  Shall  we  say  that 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  25 

this  scene  of  magnificence  has  been  called 
into  being  merely  for  the  amusement  of  a  few 
astronomers  ?  Shall  we  measure  the  counsels 
of  heaven  by  the  narrow  impotence  of  the 
human  faculties,  or  conceive  that  silence 
and  solitude  reign  throughout  the  mighty 
empire  of  nature ;  that  the  greater  part  of 
creation  is  an  empty  parade ;  and  that  not 
a  worshipper  of  the  Divinity  is  to  be  found 
through  the  wide  extent  of  yon  vast  and  im- 
measurable regions  ? 

It  lends  a  delightful  confirmation  to  the 
argument,  when,  from  the  growing  perfection 
of  our  instruments,  we  can  discover  a  new 
point  of  resemblance  between  our-  earth  and 
the  other  bodies  of  the  planetary  system.  It 
is  now  ascertained,  not  merely  that  all  of 
them  have  their  day  and  night,  and  that  all 
of  them  have  their  vicissitudes  of  seasons, 
and  that  some  of  them  have  their  moons,  to 
rule  their  night  and  alleviate  the  darkness  of 
it:  we  can  see  of  one,  that  its  surface  rises 
into  inequalities,  that  it  swells  into  moun- 
tains and  stretches  into  valleys ;  of  another, 
that  it  is  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  which 
may  support  the  respiration  of  animals ;  of  a 
third,  that  clouds  are  formed  and  suspended 


26      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

over  it,  which  may  minister  to  it  all  the 
bloom  and  luxuriance  of  vegetation ;  and  of 
a  fourth,  that  a  white  color  spreads  over  its 
northern  regions,  as  its  winter  advances,  and 
that  on  the  approach  of  summer  this  white- 
ness is  dissipated  —  giving  room  to  suppose 
that  the  element  of  water  abounds  in  it,  that 
it  rises  by  evaporation  into  its  atmosphere, 
that  it  freezes  upon  the  application  of  cold, 
that  it  is  precipitated  in  the  fonn  of  snow, 
that  it  covers  the  ground  with  a  fleecy  man- 
tle, which  melts  away  from  the  heat  of  a 
more  vertical  sun ;  and  that  other  worlds 
bear  a  resemblance  to  our  own,  in  the  same 
yearly  round  of  beneficent  and  interesting 
changes. 

Who  shall  assign  a  limit  to  the  discoveries 
of  future  ages  ?  Who  can  prescribe  to  science 
her  boundaries,  or  restrain  the  active  and 
insatiable  curiosity  of  man  within  the  circle 
of  his  present  acquirements  ?  We  may  guess 
with  plausibility  what  we  cannot  anticipate 
with  confidence.  The  day  may  yet  be  coin- 
ing when  our  instruments  of  observation  shall 
be  inconceivably  more  powerful.  They  may 
ascertain  still  more  decisive  points  of  resem- 
blance. They  may  resolve  the  same  question 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  27 

by  the  evidence  of  sense,which  is  now  so  abun- 
dantly convincing  by  the  evidence  of  analogy. 
They  may  lay  open  to  us  the  unquestionable 
vestiges  of  art  and  industry  and  intelligence. 
We  may  see  summer  throwing  its  green  man- 
tle over  these  mighty  tracts,  and  we  may  see 
them  left  naked  and  colorless  after  the  flush 
of  vegetation  has  disappeared.  In  the  prog- 
ress of  years,  or  of  centuries,  we  may  trace 
the  hand  of  cultivation  spreading  a  new 
aspect  over  some  portion  of  a  planetary  sur- 
face. Perhaps  some  large  city,  the  metrop- 
olis of  a  mighty  empire,  may  expand  into  a 
visible  spot  by  the  powers  of  some  future  tel- 
escope. Perhaps  the  glass  of  some  observer, 
in  a  distant  age,  may  enable  him  to  construct 
the  map  of  another  world,  and  to  lay  down 
the  surface  of  it  in  all  its  minute  and  topical 
varieties.  But  there  is  no  end  of  conjecture, 
and  to  the  men  of  other'  times  we  leave  the 
full  assurance  of  what  we  can  assert  with  the 
highest  probability,  that  yon  planetary  orbs 
are  so  many  worlds,  that  they  teem  with  life, 
and  that  the  mighty  Being  who  presides  in 
high  authority  over  this  scene  of  grandeur 
and  astonishment,  has  there  planted  the  wor- 
shippers of  his  glory. 


28  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

Did  the  discoveries  of  science  stop  here, 
we  have  enough  to  justify  the  exclamation 
of  the  psalmist,  "WhaU  is  man,  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him  ?  or  the  son  of  man,  that 
thou  visitest  him  ?"  •  They  widen  the  empire 
of  creation  far  beyond  the  limits  which 
were  formerly  assigned  to  it.  They  give 
us  to  see  that  yonder  sun,  throned  in  the 
centre  of  his  planetary  system,  gives  light 
and  warmth  and  the  vicissitude  of  seasons, 
to  an  extent  of  surface  several  hundreds  of 
times  greater  than  that  of  the  earth  which 
we  inhabit.  They  lay  open  to  us  a  number 
of  worlds,  rolling  in  their  respective  circles 
around  this  vast  luminary,  and  prove  that 
the  ball  which  we  tread  upon,  with  all  its 
mighty  burden  of  oceans  and  continents,  in- 
stead of  being  distinguished  from  the  others, 
is  among  the  least  of  them,  and  from  some 
of  the  more  distant  planets,  would  not  occupy 
a  visible  point  in  the  concave  of  their  firma- 
ment. They  let  us  know,  that  though  this 
mighty  earth,  with  all  its  myriads  of  people, 
were  to  sink  into  annihilation,  there  are  some 
worlds  where  an  event  so  awful  to  us  would 
be  unnoticed  and  unknown,  and  others  where 
it  would  be  nothing  more  than  the  disappear- 


MODERN   ASTRONOMY.  29 

ance  of  a  little  star  which  had  ceased  from 
its  twinkling.  "VVe  should  feel  a  sentiment 
of  modesty  at  this  just  but  humiliating  repre- 
sentation. We  should  learn  not  to  look  on 
our  earth  as  the  universe  of  God,  hut  one 
paltry  and  insignificant  portion  of  it ;  that  it 
is  only  one  of  the  many  mansions  which  the 
Supreme  Being  has  created  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  his  worshippers,  and  only  one  of  the 
many  worlds  rolling  in  that  flood  of  light 
which  the  sun  pours  around  him  to  the  outer 
limits  of  the  planetary  system. 

But  is  there  nothing  beyond  these  limits  ? 
The  planetary  system  has  its  boundary,  but 
space  has  none;  and  if  we  wing  our  fancy 
there,  do  we  only  travel  through  dark  and 
unoccupied  regions  ?  There  are  only  five,  or 
at  most  six,  of  the  planetary  orbs  visible  to 
the  naked  eye.  What,  then,  is  that  multi- 
tude of  other  lights  which  sparkle  in  our  fir- 
mament, and  fill  the  whole  concave  of  heaven 
with  innumerable  splendors?  The  planets 
are  all  attached  to  the  sun ;  and  in  circling 
around  him,  they  do  homage  to  that  influence 
which  binds  them  to  perpetual  attendance  on 
this  great  luminary.  But  the  other  stars  do 
not  own  his  dominion.  They  do  not  circle 


30  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOUESES. 

around  him.  To  all  common  observation 
they  remain  immovable;  and  each,  like  the 
independent  sovereign  of  his  own  territory, 
appears  to  occupy  the  same  inflexible  position 
in  the  regions  of  immensity.  What  can  we 
make  of  them?  Shall  we  take  our  adven- 
turous flight  to  explore  these  dark  and  untrav- 
elled  dominions?  What  mean  these  innu- 
merable fires  lighted  up  in  distant  parts  of 
the  universe?  Are  they  only  made  to  shed 
a  feeble  glimmering  over  this  little  spot  in 
the  kingdom  of  nature?  or  do  they  serve  a 
purpose  worthier  of  themselves,  to  light  up 
other  worlds,  and  give  animation  to  other 
systems  ? 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  a  scientific 
observer  of  the  fixed  stars,  is  their  immeasur- 
able distance.  If  the  whole  planetary  system 
were  lighted  up  into  a  globe  of  fire,  it  would 
exceed,  by  many  millions  of  times,  the  mag- 
nitude of  this  world,  and  yet  only  appear  a 
small  lucid  point  from  the  nearest  of  them. 
If  a  body  were  projected  from  the  sun  with 
the  velocity  of  a  cannon  ball,  it  would  take 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  before  it  de- 
scribed that  mighty  interval  which  separates 
the  nearest  of  the  fixed  stars  from  our  sun 


MODERN   ASTRONOMY.  31 

and  from  our  system.  If  this  earth,  which 
moves  at  more  than  the  inconceivable  velocity 
of  a  million  and  a  half  miles  a  day,  were  to 
be  hurried  from  its  orbit,  and  to  take  the 
same  rapid  flight  over  this  immense  tract,  it 
would  not  have  arrived  at  the  termination  of 
its  journey,  after  taking  all  the  time  which 
has  elapsed  since  the  creation  of  the  world. 
These  are  great  numbers,  and  great  calcula- 
tions, and  the  mind  feels  its  own  impotency 
in  attempting  to  grasp  them.  We  can  state 
them  in  words.  We  can  exhibit  them  in 
figures.  We  can  demonstrate  them  by  the 
powers  of  a  most  rigid  and  infallible  geom- 
etry. But  no  human  fancy  can  summon  up 
a  lively  or  an  adequate  conception — can  roam 
in  its  ideal  flight  over  this  immeasurable 
largeness — can  take  in  this  mighty  space  in 
all  its  grandeur,  and  in  all  its  immensity — 
can  sweep  the  outer  boundaries  of  such  a 
creation,  or  lift  itself  up  to  the  majesty  of 
that  great  and  invisible  arm,  on  which  all  is 
suspended. 

But  what  can  those  stars  be  which  are 
seated  so  far  beyond  the  limits  of  our  planet- 
ary system?  They  must  be  masses  of  im- 
mense magnitude,  or  they  could -not  be  seen 


32  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

at  the  distance  of  place  which  they  occupy. 
The  light  which  they  give  must  proceed  from 
themselves,  for  the  feeble  reflection  of  light 
from  some  other  quarter  would  not  carry  it 
through  such  mighty  tracts  to  the  eye  of  an 
observer.  A  body  may  be  visible  in  two 
ways.  It  may  be  visible  from  its  own  light, 
as  the  flame  of  a  candle,  or  the  brightness  of 
a  fire,  or  the  brilliancy  of  yonder  glorious  sun 
which  lightens  all  below,  and  is  the  lamp  of 
the  world.  Or  it  may  be  visible  from  the 
light  which  falls  upon  it,  as  the  body  which 
receives  its  light  from  the  taper  that  falls 
upon  it;  or  the  whole  assemblage  of  objects 
on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  which  appear 
only  when  the  light  of  day  rests  upon  them ; 
or  the  moon,  which,  in  that  part  of  it  that 
is  towards  the  sun,  gives  out  a  silvery  white- 
ness to  the  eye  of  the  observer,  while  the 
other  part  forms  a  black  and  invisible  .space 
in  the  firmament;  or  as  the  planets,  which 
shine  only  because  the  sun  shines  upon  them. 
and  which,  each  of  them,  present  the  appear- 
ance of  a  dark  spot  on  the  side  that  is  turned 
away  from  it.  Now  apply  this  question  to 
the  fixed  stars.  Are  they  luminous  of  them- 
selves, or  do  they  derive  their  light  from,  the 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  33 

sun,  like  the  bodies  of  our  planetary  system  ? 
Think  of  their  immense  distance,  and  the 
solution  of  this  question  becomes  evident. 
The  sun,  like  any  other  body,  must  dwindle 
into  a  less  apparent  magnitude  as  you  retire 
from  it.  At  the  prodigious  distance  even  of 
the  very  nearest  of  the  fixed  stars,  it  must 
have  shrunk  into  a  small  indivisible  point. 
In  short,  it  must  have  become  a  star  itself, 
and  could  shed  no  more  light  than  a  single 
individual  of^those  glimmering  myriads,  the 
whole  assemblage  of  which  cannot  dissipate 
and  can  scarcely  alleviate  the  midnight  dark- 
ness of  our  world.  These  stars  are  visible  to 
us,  not  because  the  sun  shines  upon  them, 
but  because  they  shine  of  themselves,  because 
they  are  so  many  luminous  bodies  scattered 
over  the  tracts  of  immensity — in  a  word,  be- 
cause they  are  so  many  suns,  each  throned  in 
the  centre  of  his  own  dominions,  and  pouring 
a  flood  of  light  over  his  own  portion  of  these 
uiilimitable  regions. 

At  such  an  immense  distance  for  observa- 
tion, it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  we  can  col- 
lect many  points  of  resemblance  between  the 
fixed  stars  and  the  solar  star  which  forms  the 
centre  of  our  planetary  system.  There  is  one 


34  ASTRONOMICAL    DISCOURSES. 

point  of  resemblance,  however,  which  has  not 
escaped  the  penetration  of  our  astronomers. 
We  know  that  our  sun  turns  round  upon  him- 
self, in  a  regular  period  of  time.  We  also 
know  that  there  are  dark  spots  scattered  over 
his  surface,  which,  though  invisible  to  the 
naked  eye,  are  perfectly  noticeable  by  our 
instruments.  If  these  spots  existed  in  greater 
quantity  upon  one  side  than  upon  another,  it 
would  have  the  general  effect  of  making  that 
side  darker,  and  the  revolution  of  the  sun 
must,  in  such  a  case,  give  us  a  brighter  and 
a  fainter  side,  by  regular  alternations.  Now, 
there  are  some  of  the  fixed  stars  which  pre- 
sent this  appearance.  They  present  us  with 
periodical  variations  of  light.  From  the  splen- 
dor of  a  star  of  the  first  or  second  magnitude, 
they  fade  away  into  some  of  the  inferior  mag- 
nitudes ;  and  one,  by  becoming  invisible, 
might  give  reason  to  apprehend  that  we  bad 
lost  him  altogether,  but  we  can  still  recog- 
nize him  by  the  telescope;  till  at  length  he 
reappears  in  his  own  place,  and,  after  a  reg- 
ular lapse  of  so  many  days  and  hours,  recovers 
his  original  brightness.  Now,  the  fair  infer- 
ence from  this  is,  that  the  fixed  stars,  as  they 
resemble  our  sun  in  being  so  many  luminous 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  35 

masses  of  immense  magnitude,  they  resemble 
him  in  this  also,  that  each  of  them  turns 
round  upon  his  own  axis ;  so  that  if  any  of 
them  should  have  an  inequality  in  the  bright- 
ness of  their  sides,  this  revolution  is  rendered 
evident  by  the  regular  variations  in  the  de- 
gree of  light  which  it  undergoes. 

Shall  we  say,  then,  of  these  vast  lumina- 
ries, that  they  were  created  in  vain?  Were 
they  called  into  existence  for  no  other  purpose 
than  to  throw  a  tide  of  useless  splendor  over 
the  solitudes  of  immensity  ?  Our  sun  is  only 
one  of  these  luminaries,  and  we  know  that 
he  has  worlds  in  his  train.  "Why  should  we 
strip  the  rest  of  this  princely  attendance? 
Why  may  not  each  of  them  be  the  centre  of 
his  own  system,  and  give  light  to  his  own 
worlds  ?  It  is  true  that  we  see  them  not, 
but  could  the  eye  of  man  take  its  flight  into 
those  distant  regions,  it  should  lose  sight  of 
our  little  world  before  it  reached  the  outer 
limits  of  our  system;  the  greater  planets 
should  disappear  in  their  turn :  before  it  had 
described  a  small  portion  of  that  abyss  which 
separates  us  from  the  fixed  stars,  the  sun 
should  decline  into  a  little  spot,  and  all  its 
splendid  retinue  of  worlds  be  lost  in  the  ob- 


36  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

scurity  of  distance ;  he  should,  at  last,  shrink 
into  a  small  indivisible  atom,  and  all  that 
*  could  be  seen  of  this  magnificent  system 
should  be  reduced  to  the  glimmering  of  a 
little  star.  Why  resist  any  longer  the  grand 
and  interesting  conclusion?  Each  of  these 
stars  may  be  the  token  of  a  system  as  vast 
and  as  splendid  as  the  one  which  we  inhabit. 
Worlds  roll  in  these  distant  regions;  and 
these  worlds  must  be  the  mansions  of  life 
and  of  intelligence.  In  yon  gilded  canopy  of 
heaven,  we  see  the  broad  aspect  of  the  uni- 
verse, where  each  shining  point  presents  us 
with  a  sun,  and  each  sun  with  a  system  of 
worlds ;  where  the  Divinity  reigns  in  all  the 
grandeur  of  his  attributes ;  where  he  peoples 
immensity  with  his  wonders,  and  travels  in 
the  greatness  of  his  strength  through  the 
dominions  of  one  vast  and  unlimited  mon- 
archy. 

The  contemplation  has  no  limits.  If  we 
ask  the  number  of  suns  and  of  systems,  the 
unassisted  eye  of  man  can  take  in  a  thou- 
sand, and  the  best  telescope  which  the  genius 
of  man  has  constructed  can  take  in  eighty 
millions.  But  why  subject  the  dominions  of 
the  universe  to  the  eye  of  man,  or  to  tlio 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  37 

powers  of  his  genius?  Fancy  may  take  its 
night  fcii'  beyond  the  ken  of  eye  or  of  tele- 
scope. It  may  expatiate  in  the  outer  regions 
of  all  that  is  visible ;  and  shall  we  have  the 
boldness  to  say  that  there  is  nothing  there  ? 
that  the  wonders  of  the  Almighty  are  at  an 
end,  because  we  can  no  longer  trace  his  foot- 
steps ?  that  his  omnipotence  is  exhausted, 
because  human  art  can  no  longer  follow  him  ? 
that  the  creative  energy  of  God  has  sunk  into 
repose,  because  the  imagination  is  enfeebled 
by  the  magnitude  of  its  efforts,  and  can  keep 
no  longer  on  the  wing  through  those  mighty 
tracts,  which  shoot  far  beyond  what  eye  hath 
seen,  or  the  heart  of  man  hath  conceived, 
which  sweep  endlessly  along,  and  merge  into 
an  awful  and  mysterious  infinity  ? 

Before  bringing  to  a  close  this  rapid  and 
imperfect  sketch  of  our  modern  astronomy,  it 
may  be  right  to  advert  to  two  points  of  inter- 
esting speculation,  both  of  which  serve  to 
magnify  our  conceptions  of  the  universe,  and 
of  course  to  give  us  a  more  affecting  sense  of 
the  comparative  insignificance  of  this  our 
world.  The  first  is  suggested  by  the  consid- 
eration, that  if  a  body  be  struck  in  the  direc- 
tion of  its  centre,  it  obtains,  from  this  course, 


38  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

a  progressive  motion,  but  without  any  move- 
ment of  revolution  being  at  the  same  time 
impressed  upon  it.  It  simply  goes  forward, 
but  does  not  turn  round  upon  itself.  But  again, 
should  the  stroke  not  be  in  the  direction  of 
the  centre,  should  the  line  which  joins  the 
point  of  percussion  to  the  centre  make  an 
angle  with  that  line  in  which  the  impulse 
was  communicated,  then  the  body  is  both 
made  to  go  forward  in  space,  and  also  to 
wheel  upon  its  axis.  In  this  way  each  of 
our  planets  may  have  had  their  compound 
motion  communicated  to  it  by  one  single 
impulse  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  ever  the 
rotary  motion  be  communicated  by  one  blow, 
then  the  progressive  motion  must  go  along 
with  it.  In  order  to  have  the  first  motion 
without  the  second,  there  must  be  a  twofold 
force  applied  to  the  body  in  opposite  direc- 
tions. It  must  be  set  agoing  in  the  same 
way  as  a  spinning-top,  so  as  to  revolve  about 
an  axis,  and  to  keep  unchanged  its  situation 
in  space.  The  planets  have  both  motions; 
and  therefore  may  have  received  them  by 
one  and  the  same  impulse.  The  sun,  we  are 
certain,  has  one  of  these  motions.  He  has  a, 
movement  of  revolution.  If  spun  round  his 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  39 

axis  by  two  opposite  forces,  one  on  each  side 
of  him,  he  may  have  this  movement,  and 
retain  an  inflexible  position  in  space.  But  if 
this  movement  was  given  him  by  one  stroke, 
he  must  have  a  progressive  motion,  along 
with  a  whirling  motion ;  or,  in  other  words, 
he  is  moving  forward ;  he  is  describing  a 
tract  in  space ;  and,  in  so  doing,  he  carries 
all  his  planets  and  all  their  secondaries  along 
with  him. 

But  at  this  stage  of  the  argument,  the 
matter  only  remains  a  conjectural  point  of 
speculation.  The  sun  may  have  had  his 
rotation  impressed  upon  him  by  a  spinning 
impulse ;  or,  without  recurring  to  secondary 
causes  at  all,  this  movement  may  be  coeval 
with  his  being,  and  he  may  have  derived 
both  the  one  and  the  other  from  an  imme- 
diate fiat  of  the  Creator.  But  there  is  an 
actually  observed  phenomenon  of  the  heavens, 
which  advances  the  conjecture  into  a  prob- 
ability. In  the  course  of  ages,  the  stars  in 
one  quarter  of  the  celestial  sphere  are  appar- 
ently receding  from  each  other ;  and  in  the 
opposite  quarter,  they  are  apparently  drawing 
nearer  to  each  other.  If  the  sun  be  approach- 
ing the  former  quarter,  and  receding  from  the 


40  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

latter,  this  phenomenon  admits  of  an  easy 
explanation,  and  we  are  furnished  with  a 
magnificent  step  in  the  scale  of  the  Creator's 
workmanship.  In  the  same  manner  as  the 
planets,  with  their  satellites,  revolve  round 
the  sun,  may  the  sun,  with  all  his  tributa- 
ries, be  moving,  in  common  with  other  stars, 
around  some  distant  centre,  from  which  there 
emanates  an  influence  to  bind  and  to  sub- 
ordinate them  all.  They  may  be  kept  from 
approaching  each  other  by  a  centrifugal 
force,  without  which  the  laws  of  attraction 
might  consolidate  into  one  stupendous  mass 
all  the  distinct  globes  of  which  the  universe 
is  composed.  Our  sun  may,  therefore,  be 
only  one  member  of  a  higher  family,  taking 
his  part  along  with  millions  of  others,  in 
some  loftier  system  of  mechanism,  by  which 
they  are  all  subjected  to  one  law,  and  to  one 
arrangement,  describing  the  sweep  of  such 
an  orbit  in  space,  and  completing  the  mighty 
revolution  in  such  a  period  of  time,  as  to 
reduce  our  planetary  seasons,  and  our  plan- 
etary movements,  to  a  very  humble  and  frac- 
tionary rank  in  the  scale  of  a  higher  astron- 
omy. There  is  room  for  all  this  in  immensity; 
and  there  is  even  argument  for  all  this  in 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  41 

the  records  of  actual  observation;  and  from 
the  whole  of  this  speculation  do  we  gather  a 
new  emphasis  to  the  lesson,  how  minute  is 
the  place,  and  how  secondary  is  the  impor- 
tance of  our  world,  amid  the  glories  of  such  a 
surrounding  magnificence. 

But  there  is  still  another  very  interesting 
tract  of  speculation,  which  has  been  opened 
up  to  us  by  the  more  recent  obs^vations  of 
astronomy.  What  we  allude  to  is  the  dis- 
covery of  the  nebulcB.  We  allow  that  it  is 
but  a  dim  and  indistinct  light  which  this 
discovery  has  thrown  upon  the  structure  of 
the  universe ;  but  still,  it  has  spread  before 
the  eye  of  the  mind  a  field  of  very  wide  and 
lofty  contemplation.  Anterior  to  this  dis- 
covery, the  universe  might  appear  to  have 
been  composed  of  an  indefinite  number  of 
suns,  about  equidistant  from  each  other,  uni- 
formly scattered  over  space,  and  each  encom- 
passed by  such  a  planetary  attendance  as 
takes  place  in  our  own  system.  But  we  have 
now  reason  to  think,  that  instead  of  lying  uni- 
formly, and  in  a  state  of  equidistance  from 
each  other,  they  are  arranged  into  distinct 
clusters ;  that  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
distance  of  the  nearest  fixed  stars,  so  incon- 


42      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ceivably  superior  to  that  of  our  planets  from 
each  other,  marks  the  separation  of  the  solar 
systems,  so  the  distance  of  two  contiguous 
clusters  may  be  so  inconceivably  superior  to 
the  reciprocal  distance  of  those  fixed  stars 
which  belong  to  the  same  cluster,  as  to  mark 
an  equally  distinct  separation  of  the  clusters, 
and  to  constitute  each  of  them  an  individual 
member  oAome  higher  and  more  extended 
arrangement.  This  carries  us  upward  through 
another  ascending  step  in  the  scale  of  mag- 
nificence, and  there  leaves  us  wildering  in 
the  uncertainty  whether  even  here  the  won- 
derful  progression  is  ended ;  and  at  all  events, 
fixes  the  assured  conclusion  in  our  minds, 
that  to  an  eye  which  could  spread  itself  over 
the  whole,  the  mansion  which  accommodates 
our  species  might  be  so  very  small  as  to  lie 
wrapped  in  microscopical  concealment;  and 
in  reference  to  the  only  Being  who  possesses 
this  universal  eye,  well  might  we  say,  "  What 
is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and 
the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?" 

And  after  all,  though  it  be  a  mighty  and 
difficult  conception,  yet  who  can  question  it? 
"What  is  seen  may  be  nothing  to  what  is 
unseen;  for  what  is  seen  is  limited  by  the 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  43 

range  of  our  instruments.  "What  is  unseen 
has  no  limit ;  and  though  all  which  the  eye 
of  man  can  take  in,  or  his  fancy  can  grasp  at, 
were  swept  away,  there  might  still  remain 
as  ample  a  field,  over  which  the  Divinity 
may  expatiate,  and  which  he  may  have  peo- 
pled with  innumerable  worlds.  If  the  whole 
visible  creation  were  to  disappear,  it  would 
leave  a  solitude  behind  it ;  but  to  -the  infinite 
Mind,  that  can  take  in  the  whole  system  of 
nature,  this  solitude  might  be  nothing  —  a 
small  unoccupied  point  in  that  immensity 
which  surrounds  it,  and  which  he  may  have 
filled  with  the  wonders  of  his  omnipotence. 
Though  this  earth  were  to  be  burned  up, 
though  the  trumpet  of  its  dissolution  were 
sounded,  though  yon  sky  were  to  pass  away 
as  a  scroll,  and  every  visible  glory  which  the 
finger  of  the  Divinity  has  inscribed  on  it, 
were  to  be  put  out  for  ever — an  event  so  awful 
to  us,  and  to  every  world  in  our  vicinity,  by 
which  so  many  suns  would  be  extinguished, 
and  so  many  varied  scenes  of  life  and  of  pop- 
ulation would  rush  into  forgetfulness — what 
is  it  in  the  high  scale  of  the  Almighty's  work- 
manship ?  a  mere  shred,  which,  though  scat- 
tered into  nothing,  would  leave  the  universe 


41      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

of  God  one  entire  scene  of  greatness  and  of 
majesty.  Though  this  earth  and  these  heav- 
ens were  to  disappear,  there  are  other  worlds 
which  roll  afar ;  the  light  of  other  suns  shines 
upon  them ;  and  the  sky  which  mantles  them 
is  garnished  with  other  stars.  Is  it  presump- 
tion to  say,  that  the  moral  world  extends  to 
these  distant  and  unknown  regions  ?  that  they 
are  occupied  with  people  ?  that  the  charities 
of  home  and  of  neighborhood  flourish  there  ? 
that  the  praises  of  God  are  there  lifted  up, 
and  his  goodness  rejoiced  in  ?  that  piety  has 
its  temples  and  its  offerings?  and  the  rich- 
ness of  the  divine  attributes  is  there  felt  and 
admired  by  intelligent  worshippers  ? 

And  what  is  this  world  in  the  immensity 
which  teems  with  them ;  and  what  are  they 
who  occupy  it  ?  The  universe  at  large  would 
suffer  as  little,  in  its  splendor  and  variety,  by 
the  destruction  of  our  planet,  as  the  verdure 
and  sublime  magnitude  of  a  forest  would 
surfer  by  the  fall  of  a  single  leaf.  The  leaf 
quivers  on  the  branch  which  supports  it.  It 
lies  at  the  mercy  of  the  slightest  accident. 
A  breath  of  wind  tears  it  from  its  stem,  and 
it  lights  on  the  stream  of  water  which  passes 
underneath.  In  a  moment  of  time,  the  life, 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  45 

which  we  know  by  the  microscope  it  teems 
with,  is  extinguished ;  and  an  occurrence  so 
insignificant  in  the  eye  of  man,  and  on  the 
scale  of  his  observation,  carries  in  it,  to  the 
myriads  which  people  this  little  leaf,  an  event 
as  terrible  and  as  decisive  as  the  destruction 
of  a  world.  Now,  on  the  grand  scale  of  the 
universe,  we,  the  occupiers  of  this  ball,  which 
performs  its  little  round  among  the  suns  and 
the  systems  which  astronomy  has  unfolded 
may  feel  the  same  littleness,  and  the  same 
insecurity.  We  differ  from  the  leaf  only  in 
this  circumstance,  that  it  would  require  the 
operation  of  greater  elements  to  destroy  us. 
But  these  elements  exist.  The  fire  which 
rages  within,  may  lift  its  devouring  energy 
to  the  surface  of  our  planet,  and  transform  it 
into  one  wide  and  wasting  volcano.  The 
sudden  formation  of  elastic  matter  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth — and  it  lies  within  the 
agency  of  known  substances  to  accomplish 
this — may  explode  it  into  fragments.  The 
exhalation  of  noxious  air  from  below,  may 
impart  a  virulence  to  the  air  that  is  around 
us ;  it  may  affect  the  delicate  proportion  of 
its  ingredients ;  and  the  whole  of  animated 
nature  may  wither  and  die  under  the  malig- 


46      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

nity  of  a  tainted  atmosphere.  A  blazing 
comet  may  cross  this  fated  planet  in  its  orbit, 
and  realize  all  the  terrors  which  superstition 
has  conceived  of  it.  We  cannot  anticipate 
with  precision  the  consequences  of  an  event 
which  every  astronomer  must  know  to  lie 
within  the  limits  of  chance  and  probability. 
It  may  hurry  our  globe  toward  the  sun,  or 
drag  it  to  the  outer  regions  of  the  planetary 
system,  or  give  it  a  new  axis  of  revolution; 
and  the  eifect,  which  I  shall  simply  announce 
without  explaining  it,  would  be  to  change 
the  place  of  the  ocean,  and  bring  another 
mighty  flood  upon  our  islands  and  continents. 
These  are  changes  which  may  happen  in  a 
single  instant  of  time,  and  against  which 
nothing  known  in  the  present  system  of 
things  provides  us  with  any  security.  They 
might  not  annihilate  the  earth,  but  they 
would  unpeople  it ;  and  we  who  tread  its 
surface  with  such  firm  and  assured  footsteps, 
are  at  the  mercy  of  devouring  elements,  which 
if  let  loose  upon  us  by  the  hand  of  the  Al- 
mighty, would  spread  solitude  and  silence 
and  death  over  the  dominions  of  the  world. 

Now,  it  is   this  littleness,  and  this  inse- 
curity,  which   maks   the   protection   of  the 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  47 

Almighty  so  dear  to  us,  and  bring  with  such 
emphasis  to  every  pious  bosom  the  holy  les- 
sons of  humility  and  gratitude.  The  God 
who  sitteth  above,  and  presides  in  high 
authority  over  all  worlds,  is  mindful  of  man ; 
and  though  at  this  moment  his  energy  is  felt 
in  the  remotest  provinces  of  creation,  we  may 
feel  the  same  security  in  his  providence  as 
if  we  were  the  objects  of  his  undivided  care. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  bring  our  minds  up  to  this 
mysterious  agency.  But  such  is  the  incom- 
prehensible fact,  that  the  same  Being,  whose 
eye  is  abroad  over  the  whole  universe,  gives 
vegetation  to  every  blade  of  grass,  and  motion 
to  every  particle  of  blood  which  circulates 
through  the  veins  of  the  minutest  animal — 
that  though  his  mind  takes  into  its  compre- 
hensive grasp  immensity  and  all  its  wonders, 
I  am  as  much  known  to  him  as  if  I  were  the 
single  object  of  his  attention ;  that  he  marks 
all  my  thoughts ;  that  he  gives  birth  to  every 
feeling  and  every  movement  within  me ;  and 
that,  with  an  exercise  of  power  which  I  can 
neither  describe  nor  comprehend,  the  same 
God  who  sits  in  the  highest  heaven  and 
reigns  over  the  glories  of  the  firmament,  is 
at  my  right  hand,  to  give  me  every  breath 


48      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

which  I  draw,  and  every  comfort  which  I 
enjoy. 

But  this  very  reflection  has  been  appro- 
priated to  the  use  of  infidelity,  and  the  very 
language  of  the  text  has  been  made  to  bear 
an  application  of  hostility  to  the  faith : 
"  What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? 
or  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?" 
Is  it  likely,  says  the  infidel,  that  God  would 
send  his  eternal  Son  to  die  for  the  puny  occu- 
piers of  so  insignificant  a  province  in  the 
mighty  field  of  his  creation  ?  Are  we  the 
befitting  objects  of  so  great  and  so  signal  an 
interposition  ?  Does  not  the  largeness  of  that 
field  which  astronomy  lays  open  to  the  view 
of  modern  science,  throw  a  suspicion  over  the 
truth  of  the  gospel  history;  and  how  shall 
we  reconcile  the  greatness  of  that  wonderful 
movement  which  was  made  in  heaven  for  the 
redemption  of  fallen  man,  with  the  compara- 
tive meanness  and  obscurity  of  our  species  ? 

This  is  a  popular  argument  against  Chris- 
tianity, not  much  dwelt  upon  in  books,  but, 
we  believe,  a  good  deal  insinuated  in  con- 
versation, and  having  no  small  influence  on 
the  amateurs  of  a  superficial  philosophy.  At 
all  events,  it  is  right  that  every  such  argu- 


MODERN  ASTRONOMY.  49 

ment  should  be  met,  and  manfully  confronted ; 
nor  do  we  know  a  more  discreditable  surren- 
der of  our  religion,  than  to  act  as  if  she  had 
any  thing  to  fear  from  the  ingenuity  of  her 
most  accomplished  adversaries.  The  author 
of  the  following  treatise  engages  in  his  pres- 
ent undertaking,  under  the  full  impression 
that  a  something  may  be  found  with  which 
to  combat  infidelity  in  all  its  forms  ;  that  the 
truth  of  God  and  of  his  message  admits  of  a 
noble  and  decisive  manifestation,  through 
every  mist  which  the  pride,  or  the  prejudice, 
or  the  sophistry  of  man  may  throw  around 
it ;  and  elevated  as  the  wisdom  of  him  may 
be,  who  has  ascended  the  heights  of  science, 
and  poured  the  lights  of  demonstration  over 
the  most  wondrous  of  nature's  mysteries,  that 
even  out  of  his  own  principles  it  may  be 
proved  how  much  more  elevated  is  the  wis- 
dom of  him  who  sits  with  the  docility  of  a 
little  child  to  his  Bible,  and  casts  down  to  its 
authority  all  his  lofty  imaginations. 


5C  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 


DISCOURSE    II. 

THE  MODESTY  OF  TRUE  SCIENCE. 

"  And  if  any  man  think  that  he  knoweth  any  thing,  he  knoweth 
nothing  yet  as  he  ought  to  know."    1  Cor.  8  :  2. 

THERE  is  much  profound  and  important 
wisdom  in  that  proverb  of  Solomon  where  it 
is  said,  that  the  heart  knoweth  its  own  hitter- 
ness.  It  forms  part  of  a  truth  still  more  com- 
prehensive, that  every  man  knoweth  his  own 
peculiar  feelings  and  difficulties  and  trials  far 
better  than  he  can  get  any  of  his  neighbors 
to  perceive  them.  It  is  natural  to  us  all, 
that  we  should  desire  to  engross,  to  the  utter- 
most, the  sympathy  of  others  with  what  is 
most  painful  to  the  sensibilities  of  our  own 
bosom,  and  with  what  is  most 'aggravating  in 
the  hardships  of  our  own  situation.  But 
labor  it  as  we  may,  we  cannot,  with  every 
power  of  expression,  make  an  adequate  con- 
veyance, as  it  were,  of  all  our  sensations,  and 
of  all  our  circumstances,  into  another  under- 
standing. There  is  a  something  in  the  inti- 


MODESTY  OF   TRUE   SCIENCE.  51 

macy  of  a  man's  own  experience,  which  he 
cannot  make  to  pass  entire  into  the  heart  and 
mind  even  of  his  most  familiar  companion; 
and  thus  it  is  that  he  is  so  often  defeated  in 
his  attempts  to  obtain  a  full  and  a  cordial 
possession  of  his  sympathy.  He  is  mortified^ 
and  he  wonders  at  the  obtuseness  of  the  peo- 
ple around  him,  and  how  he  cannot  get  them 
to  enter  into  the  justness  of  his  complainings  ; 
nor  to  feel  the  point  upon  which  turn  the 
truth  and  the  reason  of  his  remonstrances ; 
nor  to  give  their  interested  attention  to  the 
case  of  his  peculiarities  and  of  his  wrongs ; 
nor  to  kindle  in  generous  resentment,  along 
with  him,  when  he  starts  the  topic  of  his 
indignation.  He  does  not  reflect,  all  the 
while,  that  with  every  human  being  he  ad- 
dresses, there  is  an  inner  man,  which  forms  a 
theatre  of  passions  and  of  interests  as  busy, 
as  crowded,  and  as  fitted  as  his  own  to  en- 
gross the  anxious  and  the  exercised  feelings 
of  a  heart  which  can  alone  understand  its 
own  bitterness,  and  lay  a  correct  estimate  on 
the  burden  of  its  own  visitations.  Every 
man  we  meet  carries  about  with  him,  in  the 
unperceived  solitude  of  his  bosom,  a  little 
world  of  his  own;  and  we  are  just  as  blind. 


52       ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

and  as  insensible,  and  as  dull,  both  of  percep- 
tion and  of  sympathy,  about  his  engrossing 
objects,  as  he  is  about  ours ;  and  did  we 
suffer  this  observation  to  have  all  its  weight 
upon  us,  it  might  serve  to  make  us  more 
candid,  and  more  considerate  of  others.  It 
might  serve  to  abate  the  monopolizing  selfish- 
ness of  our  nature.  It  might  serve  to  soften 
down  all  the  malignity  which  comes  out  of 
those  envious  contemplations  that  we  are  so 
apt  to  cast  on  the  fancied  ease  and  prosperity 
which  are  around  us.  It  might  serve  to  rec- 
oncile every  man  to  his  own  lot,  and  dispose 
him  to  bear,  wifch  thankfulness,  his  own  bur- 
den ;  and  sure  I  am,  if  this  train  of  sentiment 
were  prosecuted  with  firmness  and  calmness 
and  impartiality,  it  would  lead  to  the  conclu- 
sion, that  each  profession  in  life  has  its  own 
peculiar  pains,  and  its  own  besetting  incon- 
veniences ;  that  from  the  very  bottom  of 
society,  up  to  the  very  golden  pinnacle  which 
blazons  upon  its  summit,  there  is  much  in 
the  shape  of  care  and  of  suffering  to  be  found ; 
that  throughout  all  the  conceivable  varieties 
of  human  condition,  there  are  trials  which 
can  neither  be  adequately  told  on  the  one 
side,  nor  fully  understood  on  the  other ;  that 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE  SCIENCE.  53 

the  ways  of  God  to  man  are  as  equal  in  this, 
as  in  every  department  of  his  administration ; 
and  that,  go  to  whatever  quarter  of  human 
experience  we  may,  we  shall  find  how  he 
has  provided  enough  to  exercise  the  patience, 
and  to  accomplish  the  purposes  of  a  wise  and 
a  salutary  discipline  upon  all  his  children. 

I  have  brought  forward  this  observation 
that  it  may  prepare  the  way  for  a  second. 
There  are  perhaps  no  two  sets  of  human 
beings  who  comprehend  less  the  movements, 
and  enter  less  into  the  cares  and  concerns  of 
each  other,  than  the  wide  and  busy  public  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  those  men 
of  close  and  studious  retirement,  whom  the 
world  never  hears  of,  save  when  from  their 
thoughtful  solitude  there  issues  forth  some 
splendid  discovery,  to  set  the  world  on  a  gaze 
of  admiration.  Then  will  the  brilliancy  of 
a  superior  genius  draw  every  eye  towards  it ; 
and  the  homage  paid  to  intellectual  supe- 
riority, will  place  its  idol  on  a  loftier  emi- 
nence than  all  wealth  or  than  all  titles  can 
bestow ;  and  the  name  of  the  successful  phi- 
losopher will  circulate,  in  his  own  age,  over 
the  whole  extent  of  civilized  society,  and  be 
borne  down  to  posterity  in  the  characters  of 


54      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ever-enduring  remembrance:  and  thus  it  is, 
that  when  we  look  back  on  the  days  of  New- 
ton,  we  annex  a  kind  of  mysterious  greatness 
to  him,  who,  by  the  pure  force  of  his  under- 
standing, rose  to  such  a  gigantic  elevation 
above  the  level  of  ordinary  men;  and  the 
kings  and  warriors  of  other  days  sink  into 
insignificance  around  him,  and  he  at  this 
moment  stands  forth  to  the  public  eye  in  a 
prouder  array  of  glory  than  circles  the  mem- 
ory of  all  the  men  of  former  generations ;  and 
while  all  the  vulgar  grandeur  of  other  days  is 
now  mouldering  in  forgetfulness,  the  achieve- 
ments of  our  great  astronomer  are  still  fresh 
in  the  veneration  of  his  countrymen,  and  they 
carry  him  forward  on  the  stream  of  time  with 
a  reputation  ever  gathering,  and  the  triumphs 
of  a  distinction  that  will  never  die. 

Now,  the  point  that  I  want  to  impress 
upon  you  is,  that  the  same  public  who  are 
so  dazzled  and  overborne  by  the  lustre  of  all 
this  superiority,  are  utterly  in  the  dark  as  to 
what  that  is  which  confers  its  chief  merit  on 
the  philosophy  of  Newton.  They  see  the 
result  of  his  labors,  but  they  know  not  how 
to  appreciate  the  difficulty  or  the  extent  of 
them.  They  look  on  the  stately  edifice  he 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  55 

has  reared,  but  they  know  not  what  he  had 
to  do  in  settling  the  foundation  which  gives 
to  it  all  its  stability;  nor  are  they  aware 
what  painful  encounters  he  had  to  make, 
both  with  the  natural  predilections  of  his 
own  heart,  and  with  the  prejudices  of  others, 
when  employed  on  the  work  of  laying  to- 
gether its  unperishing  materials.  They  have 
never  heard  of  the  controversies  which  this 
man  of  peaceful  unambitious  modesty  had 
to  sustain,  with  all  that  was  proud  and  all 
that  was  intolerant  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
age.  They  have  never,  in  thought,  entered 
that  closet  which  was  the  scene  of  his  patient 
and  profound  exercises ;  nor  have  they  gone 
along  with  him,  as  he  gave  his  silent  hours 
to  the  labors  of  the  midnight  oil,  and  plied 
that  unwearied  task  to  which  the  charm  of 
lofty  contemplation  had  allured  him ;  nor 
have  they  accompanied  him  through  all  the 
workings  of  that  wonderful  mind,  from  which, 
as  from  the  recesses  of  a  laboratory,  there 
came  forth  such  gleams  and  processes  of 
thought  as  shed  an  eifulgency  over  the  whole 
amplitude  of  nature.  All  this  the  public 
have  not  done;  for  of  this  the  great  majority, 
even  of  the  reading  and  cultivated  public, 


56      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

are  utterly  incapable ;  and  therefore  is  it  that 
they  need  to  be  told  what  that  is  in  which 
the  main  distinction  of  his  philosophy  lies ; 
that  when  laboring  in  other  fields  of  investi- 
gation, they  may  know  how  to  borrow  from 
his  safe  example,  and  how  to  profit  by  that 
superior  wisdom  which  marked  the  whole 
conduct  of  his  understanding. 

Let  it  be  understood,  then,  that  they  are 
the  positive  discoveries  of  Newton,  which,  in 
the  eye  of  a  superficial  public,  confer  upon 
him  all  his  reputation.  He  discovered  the 
mechanism  of  the  planetary  system.  He  dis- 
covered the  composition  of  light.  He  discov- 
ered the  cause  of  those  alternate  movements 
which  take  place  on  the  waters  of  the  ocean. 
These  form  his  actual  and  his  visible  achieve- 
ments. These  are  what  the  world  look  at  as 
the  monuments  of  his  greatness.  These  are 
doctrines  by  which  he  has  enriched  the  field 
of  philosophy ;  and  thus  it  is  that  the  whole 
of  his  merit  is  supposed  to  lie  in  having  had 
the  sagacity  to  perceive,  and  the  vigor  to  lay 
hold  of  the  proofs  which  conferred  upon  these 
doctrines  all  the  establishment  of  a  most  rigid 
and  conclusive  demonstration. 

But  while  he  gets  all  his  credit  and  all  his 


MODESTY  OF  TEUE   SCIENCE.  57 

admiration  for  those  articles  of  science  which 
he  has  added  to  the  creed  of  philosophers,  he 
deserves  as  much  credit  and  admiration  for 
those  articles  which  he  kept  out  of  this  creed, 
as  for  those  which  he  introduced  into  it.  It 
was  the  property  of  his  mind,  that  it  kept  a 
tenacious  hold  of  every  one  position  which 
had  proof  to  substantiate  it;  but  it  forms  a 
property  equally  characteristic,  and  which,  in 
fact,  gives  its  leading  peculiarity  to  the  whole 
spirit  and  style  of  his  investigations,  that  he 
put  a  most  determined  exclusion  on  every 
one  position  that  was  destitute  of  such  proof. 
He  would  not  admit  the  astronomical  theories 
of  those  who  went  before  him,  because  they 
had  no  proof.  He  would  not  give  in  to  their 
notions  about  the  planets  wheeling  their 
rounds  in  whirlpools  of  ether ;  for  he  did  not 
see  this  ether — he  had  no  proofs  of  its  exist- 
ence ;  and  besides,  even  supposing  it  to  exist, 
it  would  not  have  impressed  on  the  heavenly 
bodies  such  movements  as  met  his  observa- 
tion. He  would  not  submit  his  judgment  to 
the  reigning  systems  of  the  day ;  for  though 
they  had  authority  to  recommend  them,  they 
had  no  proof;  and  thus  it  is  that  he  evinced 
the  strength  and  the  soundness  of  his  phi- 


58  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

losophy  as  much  by  his  decisions  upon  those 
doctrines  of  science  which  he  rejected,  as  hy 
his  demonstration  of  those  doctrines  of  science 
which  he  was  the  first  to  propose,  and  which 
now  stand  out  to  the  eye  of  posterity  as  the 
only  monuments  to  the  force  and  superiority 
of  his  understanding. 

He  wanted  no  other  recommendation  for 
any  one  article  of  science,  than  the  recom- 
mendation of  evidence ;  and  with  this  recom- 
mendation, he  opened  to  it  the  chamber  of 
his  mind,  though  authority  scowled  upon  it, 
and  taste  was  disgusted  by  it,  and  fashion 
was  ashamed  of  it,  and  all  the  beauteous 
speculation  of  former  days  was  cruelly  broken 
up  by  this  new  announcement  of  the  better 
philosophy,  and  scattered  like  the  fragments 
of  an  aerial  vision,  over  which  the  past  gen- 
erations of  the  world  had  been  slumbering 
their  profound  and  their  pleasing  reverie. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  should  the  article  of 
science  want  the  recommendation  of  evi- 
dence, he  shut  against  it  all  the  avenues  of 
his  understanding — aye,  and  though  all  an- 
tiquity lent  their  suffrages  to  it,  and  all  elo- 
quence had  thrown  around  it  the  most  attrac- 
tive brilliancy,  and  all  habit  had  incorporated 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE  SCIENCE.  59 

it  with  every  system  of  every  seminary  in 
Europe,  and  all  fancy  had  arrayed  it  in  graces 
of  the  most  tempting  solicitation;  yet  was 
the  steady  and  inflexible  mind  of  Newton 
proof  against  this  whole  weight  of  authority 
and  allurement,  and  casting  his  cold  and 
unwelcome  look  at  the  specious  plausibility, 
he  rebuked  it  from  his  presence.  The  strength 
of  his  philosophy  lay  as  much  in  refusing 
admittance  to  that  which  wanted  evidence, 
as  in  giving  a  place  and  an  occupancy  to  that 
which  possessed  it.  In  that  march  of  intel- 
lect which  led  him  onward  through  the  rich 
and  magnificent  field  qf  his  discoveries,  he 
pondered  every  step  ;  and  while  he  advanced 
with  a  firm  and  assured  movement  where- 
ever  the  light  of  evidence  carried  him,  he 
never  suffered  any  glare  of  imagination  or 
of  prejudice  to  seduce  him  from  his  path. 

Sure  I  am,  that  in  the  prosecution  of  his 
wonderful  career,  he  found  himself  on  a  way 
beset  with  temptation  upon  every  side  of  him. 
It  was  not  merely  that  he  had  the  reigning 
taste  and  philosophy  of  the  times  to  contend 
with ;  but  he  expatiated  on  a  lofty  region, 
where,  in  all  the  giddiness  of  success,  he 
might  have  met  with  much  to  solicit  his 


60  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

fancy,  and  tempt  him  to  some  devious  specu- 
lation. Had  he  been  like  the  majority  of 
other  men,  he  would  have  broken  free  from 
the  fetters  of  a  sober  and  chastised  under- 
standing, and  giving  wing  to  his  imagina- 
tion, had  done  what  philosophers  have  done 
after  him — been  carried  away  by  some  me- 
teor of  their  own  forming,  or  found  their 
amusement  in  some  of  their  own  intellectual 
pictures,  or  palmed  some  loose  and  confident 
plausibilities  of  their  own  upon  the  world. 
But  Newton  stood  true  to  his  principle,  that 
he  would  take  up  with  nothing  which  wanted 
evidence,  and  he  kept  by  his  demonstrations 
and  his  measurements  and  his  proofs ;  and  if 
it  be  true  that  he  who  ruleth  his  own  spirit 
is  greater  than  he  who  taketh  a  city,  there 
was  won,  in  the  solitude  of  his  chamber, 
many  a  repeated  victory  over  himself,  which 
should  give  a  brighter  lustre  to  his  name 
than  all  the  conquests  he  has  made  on  the 
field  of  discovery,  or  than  all  the  splendor  of 
his  positive  achievements. 

I  trust  you  understand  how,  though  it  be 
one  of  the  maxims  of  the  true  philosophy, 
never  to  shrink  from  a  doctrine  which  has 
evidence  on  its  side;  it  is  another  maxim, 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  61 

equally  essential  to  it,  never  to  harbor  any 
doctrine  when  this  evidence  is  wanting. 
Take  these  two  maxims  along  with  you,  and 
you  will  be  at  no  loss  to  explain  the  pecu- 
liarity which,  more  than  any  other,  goes  both 
to  characterize  and  to  ennoble  the  philosophy 
of  Newton.  What  I  allude  to,  is  the  pre- 
cious combination  of  its  strength  and  of  its 
modesty.  On  the  one  hand,  what  greater  evi- 
dence of  strength  than  the  fulfilment  of  that 
mighty  enterprise  by  which  the  heavens  have 
been  made  its  own,  and  the  mechanism  of 
unnumbered  worlds  has  been  brought  within 
the  grasp  of  the  human  understanding  ?  Now, 
it  was  by  walking  in  the  light  of  sound  and 
competent  evidence  that  all  this  was  accom- 
plished. It  was  by  the  patient,  the  strenuous, 
the  unfaltering  application  of  the  legitimate 
instruments  of  discovery.  It  was  by  touching 
that  which  was  tangible,  and  looking  to  that 
which  was  visible,  and  computing  that  which 
was  measurable,  and  in  one  word,  by  making 
a  right  and  a  reasonable  use  of  all  that  proof 
which  the  field  of  nature  around  us  has 
brought  within  the  limit  of  sensible  observa- 
tion. This  is  the  arena  on  which  the  modern 
philosophy  has  won  all  her  victories,  and  ful- 


62      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

filled  all  her  wondrous  achievements,  and 
reared  all  her  proud  and  enduring  monu- 
ments, and  gathered  all  her  magnificent  tro- 
phies to  that  power  of  intellect  with  which 
the  hand  of  a  bounteous  heaven  has  so  richly 
gifted  the  constitution  of  our  species. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  go  beyond  the 
limits  of  sensible  observation,  and  from  that 
moment  the  genuine  disciples  of  this  enlight- 
ened school  cast  all  their  confidence  and  all 
their  intrepidity  away  from  them.  Keep 
them  on  the  firm  ground  of  experiment,  and 
none  more  bold  and  more  decisive  in  their 
announcements  of  all  that  they  have  evidence 
for ;  but  off  this  ground,  none  more  humble, 
or  more  cautious  of  any  thing  like  positive 
announcements  than  they.  They  choose  nei- 
ther to  know,  nor  to  believe,  nor  to  assert, 
where  evidence  is  wanting;  and  they  will 
sit,  with  all  the  patience  of  a  scholar  to  his 
task,  till  they  have  found  it.  They  are  utter 
strangers  to  that  haughty  confidence  with 
which  some  philosophers  of  the  day  sport 
the  plausibilities  of  unauthorized  speculation, 
and  by  which,  unmindful  of  the  limit  that 
separates  the  region  of  sense  from  the  region 
of  conjecture,  they  make  their  blind  and  their 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE  SCIENCE.  63 

impetuous  inroads  into  a  province  which  does 
not  belong  to  them.  There  is  no  one  object 
to  which  the  exercised  mind  of  a  true  New- 
tonian disciple  is  more  familiarized  than  this 
limit,  and  it  serves  as  a  boundary  by  which 
he  shapes  and  bounds  and  regulates  all  the 
enterprises  of  his  philosophy.  All  the  space 
which  lies  within  this  limit  he  cultivates  to 
the  uttermost,  and  it  is  by  such  successive 
labors,  that  every  year  which  rolls  over  the 
world  is  witnessing  some  new  contribution  to 
experimental  science,  and  adding  to  the  solid- 
ity and  aggrandizement  of  this  wonderful 
fabric.  But  if  true  to  their  own  principle, 
then,  in  reference  to  the  forbidden  ground 
which  lies  without  this  limit,  those  very 
men,  who  on  the  field  of  warranted  exertion 
evinced  all  the  hardihood  and  vigor  of  a  full 
grown  understanding,  show  on  every  subject 
where  the  light  of  evidence  is  withheld  from 
them,  all  the  modesty  of  children.  They 
give  you  positive  opinion  only  when  they 
have  indisputable  proof;  but  when  they  have 
no  such  proof,  then  they  have  no  such  opin- 
ion. The  single  principle  of  their  respect  to 
truth,  secures  their  homage  for  every  one 
position  where  the  evidence  of  truth  is  pres- 


64      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ent,  and  at  the  same  time  begets  an  entire 
diffidence  about  every  one  position  from  which 
this  evidence  is  disjoined.  And  thus  you 
may  understand  how  the  first  man  in  the 
accomplishments  of  philosophy  which  the 
world  ever  saw,  sat  at  the  book  of  nature  in 
the  humble  attitude  of  its  interpreter  and  its 
pupil ;  how  all  the  docility  of  conscious  igno- 
rance threw  a  sweet  and  softening  lustre 
around  the  radiance  even  of  his  most  splen- 
did discoveries ;  and  while  the  flippancy  of  a 
few  superficial  acquirements  is  enough  to 
place  a  philosopher  of  the  day  on  the  pedestal 
of  his  fancied  elevation,  and  to  vest  him  with 
an  assumed  lordship  over  the  whole  domain 
of  natural  and  revealed  knowledge,  I  cannot 
forbear  to  do  honor  to  the  unpretending  great- 
ness of  Newton,  than  whom  I  know  not  if 
there  ever  lighted  on  the  face  of  our  world 
one  in  the  character  of  whose  admirable 
genius  so  much  force  and  so  much  humility 
were  more  attractively  blended. 

I  now  propose  to  carry  you  forward,  by  a 
few  simple  illustrations,  to  the  argument  of 
this  day.  All  the  sublime  truths  of  the  mod- 
ern astronomy  lie  within  the  field  of  actual 
observation,  and  have  the  firm  evidence  to 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  65 

rest  upon  of  all  that  information  which  is 
conveyed  to  us  by  the  avenue  of  the  senses. 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  never  went  heyond  this 
field,  without  a  reverential  impression  upon 
his  mind  of  the  precariousness  of  the  ground 
on  which  he  was  standing.  On  this  ground 
he  never  ventured  a  positive  affirmation,  but 
resigning  the  lofty  tone  of  demonstration,  and 
putting  on  the  modesty  of  conscious  igno- 
rance, he  brought  forward  all  he  had  to  say 
in  the  humble  form  of  a  doubt,  or  a  conjec- 
ture, or  a  question.  But  what  he  had  not 
confidence  to  do,  other  philosophers  have  done 
after  him,  and  they  have  winged  their  auda- 
cious way  into  forbidden  regions,  and  they 
have  crossed  that  circle  by  which  the  field 
of  observation  is  inclosed,  and  there  have  they 
debated  and  dogmatized  with  all  the  pride 
of  a  most  intolerant  assurance. 

Now,  though  the  case  be  imaginary,  let  us 
conceive,  for  the  sake  of  illustration,  that  one 
of  these  philosophers  made  so  extravagant  a 
departure  from  the  sobriety  of  experimental 
science,  as  to  pass  on  from  the  astronomy  of 
the  different  planets,  and  to  attempt  the  nat- 
ural history  of  their  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms.  He  might  get  hold  of  some  vague 


66       ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES 

and  general  analogies,  to  throw  an  air  of 
plausibility  around  his  speculation.  He  might 
pass  from  the  hotany  of  the  different  regions 
of  the  globe  that  we  inhabit,  and  make  his 
loose  and  confident  applications  to  each  of 
the  other  planets,  according  to  its  distance 
from  the  sun,  and  the  inclination  of  its  axis 
to  the  plane  of  its  annual  revolution ;  and 
out  of  some  such  slender  materials  he  may 
work  up  an  amusing  philosophical  romance, 
full  of  ingenuity,  and  having,  withal,  the 
color  of  trulji  and  of  consistency  spread 
over  it. 

I  can  conceive  how  a  superficial  public 
might  be  delighted  by  the  eloquence  of  such 
a  composition,  and  even  be  impressed  by  its 
arguments ;  but  were  I  asked,  which  is  the 
man  of  all  the  ages  and  countries  in  the 
world  who  would  have  the  least  respect  for 
this  treatise  upon  the  plants  which  grow  on 
the  surface  of  Jupiter,  I  should  be  at  no  loss 
to  answer  the  question.  I  should  say  that 
it  would  be  he  who  had  computed  the  mo- 
tions of  Jupiter ;  that  it  would  be  he  who  had 
measured  the  bulk  and  the  density  of  Jupi- 
ter ;  that  it  would  be  he  who  had  estimated 
the  periods  of  Jupiter ;  that  it  would  be  he 


MODESTY  OF   TRUE   SCIENCE.  67 

whose  observant  eye  and  patiently  calculat- 
ing mind  had  traced  the  satellites  of  Jupiter 
through  all  the  rounds  of  their  mazy  circula- 
tion, and  unravelled  the  intricacy  of  all  their 
movements.  He  would  see  at  once  that  the 
subject  lay  at  a  hopeless  distance  beyond  the 
field  of  legitimate  observation.  It  would  be 
quite  enough  for  him,  that  it  was  beyond  the 
range  of  his  telescope.  On  this  ground,  and 
on  this  ground  only,  would  he  reject  it  as  one 
of  the  puniest  imbecilities  of  childhood.  As 
to  any  character  of  truth  or  of  importance,  it 
would  have  no  more  effect  on  such  a  mind  as 
that  of  Newton,  than  any  illusion  of  poetry ; 
and  from  the  eminence  of  his  intellectual 
throne  would  he  cast  a  penetrating  glance  at 
the  whole  speculation,  and  bid  its  gaudy  insig- 
nificance away  from  him. 

But  let  us  pass  onward  to  another  case, 
which  though  as  imaginary  as  the  former, 
may  still  serve  the  purpose  of  illustration. 

This  same  adventurous  philosopher  may 
be  conceived  to  shift  his  speculation  from  the 
plants  of  another  world  to  the  character  of  its 
inhabitants.  He  may  avail  himself  of  some 
slender  correspondences  between  the  heat  of 
the  sun  and  the  moral  temperament  of  the 


G8  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

people  it  shines  upon.  He  may  work  up  a 
theory  which  carries  on  the  front  of  it  some 
of  the  characters  of  plausibility,  but  surely  it 
does  not  require  the  philosophy  of  Newton  to 
demonstrate  the  folly  of  such  an  enterprise. 
There  is  not  a  man  of  plain  understanding, 
who  does  not  perceive  that  this  said  ambitious 
inquirer  has  got  without  his  reach;  that  he 
has  stepped  beyond  the  field  of  experience, 
and  is  now  expatiating  on  the  field  of  imag- 
ination ;  that  he  has  ventured  on  a  dark  un- 
known, where  the  wisest  of  all  philosophy  is 
the  philosophy  of  silence,  and  a  profession  of 
ignorance  is  the  best  evidence  of  a  solid  under- 
standing ;  that  if  he  thinks  he  knows  any  thing 
on  such  a  subject  as  this,  he  knoweth  nothing 
yet  as  he  ought  to  know.  He  knows  not 
what  Newton  knew,  and  what  he  kept  a 
steady  eye  upon  throughout  the  whole  march 
of  his  sublime  investigations.  He  knows  not 
the  limit  of  his  own  faculties.  He  has  over- 
leaped the  barrier  which  hems  in  all  the  pos- 
sibilities of  human  attainment.  He  has  wan- 
tonly flung  himself  off  from  the  safe  and  firm 
field  of  observation,  and  got  on  that  undis- 
coverable  ground  where  by  every  step  he 
takes  he  widens  his  distance  from  the  true 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  69 

philosophy,  and  by  every  affirmation  he  utters 
he  rebels  against  the  authority  of  all  its 
maxims. 

I  can  conceive  it  the  feeling  of  every  one 
of  you,  that  I  have  hitherto  indulged  in  a 
vain  expense  of  argument,  and  it  is  most 
natural  for  you  to  put  the  question,  "  What 
is  the  precise  point  of  convergence  to  which 
you  are  directing  all  the  light  of  this  abundant 
and  seemingly  superfluous  illustration  ?" 

In  the  astronomical  objection  which  infi- 
delity has  proposed  against  the  truth  of  the 
Christian  revelation,  there  is  first  an  assertion, 
and  then  an  argument.  The  assertion  is, 
that  Christianity  is  set  up  for  the  exclusive 
benefit  of  our  minute  and  solitary  world. 
The  argument  is,  that  God  would  not  lavish 
such  a  quantity  of  attention  on  so  insignifi- 
cant a  field.  Even  though  the  assertion  were 
admitted,  I  should  have  a  quarrel  with  the 
argument.  But  the  futility  of  the  objection 
is  not  laid  open  in  all  its  extent,  unless  we 
expose  the  utter  want  of  all  essential  evi- 
dence even  for  the  truth  of  the  assertion. 
How  do  Infidels  know  that  Christianity  is 
set  up  for  the  single  benefit  of  this  earth  and 
its  inhabitants?  How  are  they  able  to  tell 


70       ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

us,  that  if  you  go  to  other  planets  the  person 
and  religion  of  Jesus  are  there  unknown  to 
them?  We  challenge  them  to  the  proof  of 
this  so  positive  announcement  of  theirs.  We 
see  in  this  objection  the  same  rash  and  gra- 
tuitous procedure  which  was  so  apparent  in 
the  two  cases  that  we  have  already  advanced 
for  the  purpose  of  illustration.  We  see  in  it 
the  same  glaring  transgression  on  the  spirit 
and  the  maxims  of  that  very  philosophy  which 
they  profess  to  idolize.  They  have  made 
their  argument  against  us  out  of  an  assertion 
which  has  positively  no  feet  to  rest  upon; 
an  assertion  which  they  have  no  means  what- 
ever of  verifying ;  an  assertion,  the  truth  or 
the  falsehood  of  which  can  only  be  gathered 
out  of  some  supernatural  message,  for  it  lies 
completely  beyond  the  range  of  human  obser- 
vation. It  is  willingly  admitted,  that  by  an 
attempt  at  the  botany  of  other  worlds,  the 
true  method  of  philosophizing  is  trampled  on ; 
for  this  is  a  subject  that  lies  beyond  the 
range  of  actual  observation,  and  every  per- 
formance upon  it  must  be  made  up  of  asser- 
tions without  proofs.  It  is  also  willingly 
admitted,  that  an  attempt  at  the  civil  and 
political  history  of  their  people,  would  be  an 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  71 

ually  extravagant  departure  from  the  spirit 
the  true  philosophy ;  for  this  also  lies  beyond 
the  field  of  actual  observation,  and  all  that 
could  possibly  be  mustered  up,  on  such  a  sub- 
ject as  this,  would  still  be  assertions  without 
proofs.  Now,  the  theology  of  these  planets 
is,  in  every  way,  as  inaccessible  a  subject  as 
their  politics  or  their  natural  history;  and 
therefore  it  is  that  the  objection,  grounded 
on  the  confident  assumption  of  those  infidel 
astronomers  who  assert  Christianity  to  be 
the  religion  of  this  one  world,  or  that  the 
religion  of  these  other  worlds  is  not  our  very 
Christianity,  can  have  no  influence  on  a  mind 
that  has  derived  its  habits  of  thinking  from 
the  pure  and  rigorous  school  of  Newton ;  for 
the  whole  of  this  assertion  is  just  as  glaringly 
destitute,  as  in  the  two  former  instances,  of 
proof. 

The  man  who  could  embark  in  an  enter- 
prise so  foolish  and  so  fanciful,  as  to  theorize 
it  on  the  details  of  the  botany  of  another 
world,  or  to  theorize  it  on  the  natural  and 
moral  history  of  its  people,  is  just  making  as 
outrageous  a  departure  from  all  sense  and  all 
science  and  all  sobriety,  when  he  presumes  to 
speculate  or  to  assert  on  the  details  or  the 


72  ASTEONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

methods  of  God's  administration  among  its 
rational  and  accountable  inhabitants.  He 
wings  his  fancy  to  as  hazardous  a  region,  and 
vainly  strives  a  penetrating  vision  through 
the  mantle  of  as  deep  an  obscurity.  All  the 
elements  of  such  a  speculation  are  hidden 
from  him.  For  any  thing  he  can  tell,  sin  has 
found  its  way  into  these  other  worlds.  For 
any  thing  he  can  tell,  their  people  have  ban- 
ished themselves  from  communion  with  God. 
For  any  thing  he  can  tell,  many  a  visit  has 
been  made  to  each  of  them  on  the  subject  of 
our  common  Christianity,  by  commissioned 
messengers  from  the  throne  of  the  Eternal. 
For  any  thing  he  can  tell,  the  redemption 
proclaimed  to  us  is  not  one  solitary  instance, 
or  not  the  whole  of  that  redemption  which 
is  by  the  Son  of  God ;  but  only  our  part  in  a 
plan  of  mercy,  equal  in  magnificence  to  all 
that  astronomy  has  brought  within  the  range 
of  human  contemplation.  For  any  thing  he 
can  tell,  the  moral  pestilence  which  walks 
abroad  over  the  face  of  our  world,  may  have 
spread  its  desolation  over  all  the  planets  of 
all  the  systems  which  the  telescope  has  made 
known  to  us.  For  any  thing  he  can  tell, 
some  mighty  redemption  has  been  devised  in 


MODESTY   OF   TRUE   SCIENCE.  73 

heaven,  to  meet  this  disaster  in  the  whole 
extent  and  malignity  of  its  visitations.  For 
any  thing  he  can  tell,  the  wonder-working 
God,  who  has  strewed  the  field  of  immensity 
with  so  many  worlds,  and  spread  the  shelter 
of  his  omnipotence  over  them,  may  have  sent 
a  message  of  love  to  each,  and  reassured  the 
hearts  of  its  despairing  people  by  some  over- 
powering manifestation  of  tenderness.  For 
any  thing  he  can  tell,  angels  from  paradise 
may  have  sped  to  every  planet  their  dele- 
gated way,  and  sung  from  each  azure  canopy 
a  joyful  annunciation,  and  said,  "Peace  he  to 
this  residence,  and  good  will  to  all  its  fam- 
ilies, and  glory  to  Him  in  the  highest,  who 
from  the  eminence  of  his  throne  has  issued 
an  act  of  grace  so  magnificent,  as  to  carry 
the  tidings  of  life  and  of  acceptance  to  the 
unnumbered  orbs  of  a  sinful  creation."  For 
any  thing  he  can  tell,  the  eternal  Son,  of 
whom  it  is  said,  that  hy  him  the  worlds  were 
created,  may  have  had  the  government  of 
many  sinful  worlds  laid  upon  his  shoulders ; 
and  by  the  power  of  his  mysterious  word, 
have  awoke  them  all  from  that  spiritual 
death,  to  which  they  had  sunk  in  lethargy 
as  profound  as  the  slumbers  of  non-existence. 


74      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

For  any  thing  he  can  tell,  the  one  Spirit  who 
moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters,  and  whose 
presiding  influence  it  was  that  hushed  the 
wild  war  of  nature's  elements,  and  made  a 
beauteous  system  emerge  out  of  its  disjointed 
materials,  may  now  be  working  with  the 
fragments  of  another  chaos,  and  educing 
order  and  obedience  and  harmony  out  of  the 
wrecks  of  a  moral  rebellion  which  reaches 
through  all  these  spheres,  and  spreads  disorder 
to  the  uttermost  limits  of  our  astronomy. 

But  here  I  stop,  nor  shall  I  attempt  to 
grope  pay  dark  and  fatiguing  way,  by  an- 
other inch,  among  such  sublime  and  myste- 
rious secrecies.  It  is  not  I  who  am  offering 
to  lift  this  curtain.  It  is  not  I  who  am 
pitching  my  adventurous  flight  to  the  secret 
things  which  belong  to  God,  away  from  the 
tilings  that  are  revealed,  and  which  belong 
to  me  and  to  my  children.  It  is  the  cham- 
pion of  that  very  infidelity  which  I  am  now 
combating.  It  is  he  who  props  his  unchris- 
tian argument  by  presumptions  fetched  out 
of  those  untravelled  obscurities  which  lie  on 
the  other  side  of  a  barrier  that  I  pronounce 
to  be  impassable.  It  is  he  who  transgresses 
the  limits  which  Newton  forbore  to  enter: 


MODESTY  OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  75 

because,  with  a  justness  which  reigns  through- 
out all  his  inquiries,  he  saw  the  limit  of  his 
own  understanding,  nor  would  he  venture 
himself  beyond  it.  It  is  he  who  has  bor- 
rowed from  the  philosophy  of  this  wondrous 
man  a  few  dazzling  conceptions,  which  have 
only  served  to  bewilder  him,  while,  an  utter 
stranger  to  the  spirit  of  his  philosophy,  he  has 
carried  a  daring  and  an  ignorant  speculation 
far  beyond  the  boundary  of  its  prescribed  and 
allowable  enterprises.  It  is  he  who  has  mus- 
tered against  the  truths  of  the  gospel,  resting, 
as  it  does,  on  evidence  within  the  reach  of 
his  faculties,  an  objection,  for  the  truth  of 
which  he  has  no  evidence  whatever.  It  is 
he  who  puts  away  from  him  a  doctrine,  for 
which  he  has  the  substantial  and  the  familiar 
proof  of  human  testimony,  and  substitutes  in 
its  place  a  doctrine  for  which  he  can  get  no 
other  support  than  from  a  reverie  of  his  own 
imagination.  It  is  he  who  turns  aside  from 
all  that  safe  and  certain  argument  that  is 
supplied  by  the  history  of  this  world,  of  which 
he  knows  something,  and  who  loses  himself 
in  the  work  of  theorizing  about  other  worlds, 
of  the  moral  and  theological  history  of  which 
he  positively  knows  nothing.  Upon  him,  and 


76  ASTEONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

not  upon  us,  lies  the  folly  of  launching  his 
impetuous  way  beyond  the  province  of  obser- 
vation— of  letting  his  fancy  afloat  among  the 
unknown  of  distant  and  mysterious  regions; 
and  by  an  act  of  daring,  as  impious  as  it  is 
unphilosophical,  of  trying  to  unwrap  that 
shroud,  which,  till  drawn  aside  by  the  hand 
of  a  messenger  from  heaven,  will  ever  veil 
from  human  eye  the  purposes  of  the  Eternal. 
If  you  have  gone  along  with  me  in  the 
preceding  observations,  you  will  perceive  how 
they  are  calculated  to  disarm  of  all  its  point, 
and  of  all  its  energy,  that  flippancy  of  Vol- 
taire, when  in  the  examples  he  gives  of  the 
dotage  of  the  human  understanding,  he  tells 
us  of  Bacon  having  believed  in  witchcraft, 
and  Sir  Isaac  Newton  having  written  a  Com- 
mentary on  the  book  of  Revelation.  The 
former  instance  we  shall  not  undertake  to 
vindicate,  but  in  the  latter  instance  we  per- 
ceive what  this  brilliant  and  specious,  but 
withal  superficial  a  postleof  infidelity  either 
did  not  see,  or  refused  to  acknowledge.  We 
see  in  this  intellectual  labor  of  our  great 
philosopher,  the  working  of  the  very  same 
principles  which  carried  him  through  the  pro-^ 
foundest  and  the  most  successful  of  his  inve^ti- 


MODESTY  OF   TRUE   SCIENCE.  77 

gations ;  and  how  he  kept  most  sacredly  and 
most  consistently  by  those  very  maxims  the 
authority  of  which  he,  even  in  the  full  vigor 
and  manhood  of  his  faculties,  ever  recognized. 
We  see  in  the  theology  of  Newton  the  very 
spirit  and  principle  which  gave  all  its  sta- 
bility, and  all  its  sureness,  to  the  philosophy 
of  Newton.  We  see  the  same  tenacious  ad- 
herence to  every  one  doctrine,  that  had  such 
valid  proof  to  uphold  it,  as  could  be  gath- 
ered from  the  field  of  human  experience ; 
and  we  see  the  same  firm  resistance  of  every 
one  argument,  that  had  nothing  to  recom- 
mend it  but  such  plausibilities  as  could  easily 
be  devised  by  the  genius  of  man,  when  he 
expatiated  abroad  on  those  fields  of  creation 
which  the  eye  never  witnessed,  and  from 
which  no  messenger  ever  came  to  us  with 
any  credible  information.  Now,  it  was  on 
the  former  of  these  two  principles  that  New- 
ton clung  so  determinedly  to  his  Bible,  as 
the  record  of  an  actual  annunciation  from 
G-od  to  the  inhabitants  of  this  world.  When 
he  turned  his  attention  to  this  book,  he  came 
to  it  with  a  mind  tutored  to  the  philosophy 
of  facts ;  and  when  he  looked  at  its  creden- 
tials, he  saw  the  stamp  and  the  impress  of 


78  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

this  philosophy  on  every  one  of  them.  He 
saw  the  fact  of  Christ  being  a  messenger 
from  heaven,  in  the  audible  language  by 
which  it  was  conveyed  from  heaven's  canopy 
to  human  ears.  He  saw  the  fact  of  his  being 
an  approved  ambassador  of  God,  in  those 
miracles  which  carried  their  own  resistless 
evidence  along  with  them  to  human  eyes. 
He  saw  the  truth  of  this  whole  history 
brought  home  to  his  own  conviction  by  a 
sound  and  substantial  vehicle  of  human  tes- 
timony. He  saw  the  reality  of  that  super- 
natural light,  which  inspired  the  prophecies 
he  himself  illustrated,  by  such  an  agreement 
with  the  events  of  a  various  and  distant 
futurity  as  could  be  taken  cognizance  of  by 
human  observation.  He  saw  the  wisdom  of 
God  pervading  the  whole  substance  of  the 
written  message,  in  such  manifold  adapta- 
tions to  the  circumstances  of  man,  and  to  the 
whole  secrecy  of  his  thoughts  and  his  affec- 
tions and  his  spiritual  wants  and  his  moral 
sensibilities,  as  even  in  the  mind  of  an  ordi- 
nary and  unlettered  peasant,  can  be  attested 
by  human  consciousness.  These  formed  the 
solid  materials  of  the  basis  on  which  our 
experimental  philosopher  stood ;  and  there 


MODESTY   OF   TRUE   SCIENCE.  79 

was  nothing  in  the  whole  compass  of  his  own 
astronomy  to  dazzle  him  away  from  it ;  and 
he  was  too  well  aware  of  the  limit  between 
what  he  knew,  and  what  he  did  not  know, 
to  he  seduced  from  the  ground  he  had  taken 
by  any  of  those  brilliancies  which  have  since 
led  so  many  of  his  humble  successors  into 
the  track  of  infidelity.  He  had  measured  the 
distances  of  these  planets.  He  had  calcu- 
lated their  periods.  He  had  estimated  their 
figures  and  their  bulk  and  their  densities, 
and  he  had  subordinated  the  whole  intricacy 
of  their  movements  to  the  simple  and  sub- 
lime agency  of  one  commanding  principle. 
But  he  had  too  much  of  the  ballast  of  a  sub- 
stantial understanding  about  him  to  be  thrown 
afloat  by  all  this  success  ^inong  the  plausi- 
bilities of  wanton  and  unauthorized  specula- 
tion. He  knew  the  boundary  which  hemmed 
him.  He  knew  that  he  had  not  thrown  one 
particle  of  light  on  the  moral  or  religious 
history  of  these  planetary  regions.  He  had 
not  ascertained  what  visits  of  communication 
they  received  from  the  God  who  upholds 
them.  But  he  knew  that  the  fact  of  a  real 
visit  made  to  this  planet  had  such  evidence 
to  rest  upon,  that  it  was  not  to  be  disposted 


80      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

by  any  aerial  imagination.  And  when  I  look 
at  the  steady  and  unmoved  Christianity  of 
this  wonderful  man,  so  far  from  seeing  any 
symptom  of  dotage  and  imbecility,  or  any 
forgetfulness  of  those  principles  on  which  the 
fabric  jof  his  philosophy  is  reared,  do  I  see, 
that  in  sitting  down  to  the  work  of  a  Bible 
commentator,  he  hath  given  us  their  most 
beautiful  and  most  consistent  exemplifica- 


did  not  anticipate  such  a  length  of  time, 
of  illustration,  in  this  stage  of  my  argu- 
ment. But  I  will  not  regret  it,  if  I  have 
familiarized  the  minds  of  any  of  my  readers 
to  the  reigning  principle  of  this  discourse. 
We  are  strongly  disposed  to  think  that  it  is  a 
principle  which  flight  be  made  to  apply  to 
every  argument  of  every  unbeliever,  and  so 
to  serve  not  merely  as  an  antidote  against 
the  infidelity  of  astronomers,  but  to  serve  as 
an  antidote  against  all  infidelity.  We  are 
well  aware  of  the  diversity  of  complexion 
which  infidelity  puts  on.  It  looks  one  thing 
in  the  man  of  science  and  of  liberal  accomplish- 
ment. It  looks  another  thing  in  the  refined 
voluptuary.  It  looks  still  another  thing  in  the 
commonplace  railer  against  the  artifices  of 


MODESTY  OF   TRUE   SCIENCE.  81 

priestly  domination.  It  looks  another  thing 
in  the  -dark  and  unsettled  spirit  of  him  whose 
every  reflection  is  tinctured  with  gall,  and 
who  casts  his  envious  and  malignant  scowl 
at  all  that  stands  associated  with  the  estab- 
lished order  of  society.  It  looks  another 
thing  in  the  prosperous  man  of  business,  who 
has  neither  time  nor  patience  for  the  details 
of  the  Christian  evidence ;  "but  who,  amid 
the  hurry  of  his  other  occupations,  has  gath- 
ered as  many  of  the  lighter  petulances  of  the 
infidel  writers,  and  caught  from  the  perusal 
of  them  as  contemptuous  a  tone  towards  the 
religion  of  the  New  Testament,  as  to  set 
him  at  large  from  the  decencies  of  religious 
observation,  and  to  give  him  the  disdain  of  an 
elevated  complacency  over  all  the  follies  of 
what  he  counts  a  vulgar  superstition.  And 
lastly,  for  infidelity  has  now  got  down  among 
us  to  the  humblest  walks  of  life,  may  it 
occasionally  be  seen  lowering  on  the  fore- 
head of  the  resolute  and  hardy  artificer,  who 
can  lift  his  menacing  voice  against  the  priest- 
hood, and  looking  on  the  Bible  as  a  jugglery 
of  theirs,  can  bid  stout  defiance  to  all  its 
denunciations.  Now,  under  all  these  vari- 
eties, we  think  that  there  might  be  detected 

4* 


82  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

the  one  and  universal  principle  which  we 
have  attempted  to  expose.  The  something, 
whatever  it  is,  which  has  dispossessed  all 
these  people  of  their  Christianity,  exists  in 
their  minds  in  the  shape  of  a  position  which 
they  hold  to  be  true,  hut  which,  by  no  legit- 
imate evidence,  they  have  ever  realized ;  and 
a  position  which  lodges  within  them  as  a 
wilful  fancy  or  presumption  of  their  own, 
but  which  could  not  stand  the  touchstone 
of  that  wise  and  solid  principle,  in  virtue  of 
which  the  followers  of  Newton  give  to  obser- 
vation the  precedence  over  theory.  It  is  a 
principle  altogether  worthy  of  being  labored ; 
as,  if  carried  round  in  faithful  and  consistent 
application  among  these  numerous  varieties, 
it  is  able  to  break  up  all  the  existing  infi- 
delity of  the  world. 

But  there  is  one  other  most  important 
conclusion  to  which  it  carries  us.  It  carries 
us,  with  all  the  docility  of  children,  to  the 
Bible,  and  puts  us  down  into  the  attitude 
of  an  unreserved  surrender  of  thought  and 
understanding  to  its  authoritative  informa- 
tion. Without  the  testimony  of  an  authentic 
messenger  from  heaven,  I  know  nothing  of 
heaven's  counsels.  I  never  heard  of  any 


MODESTY   OF  TRUE   SCIENCE.  83 

moral  telescope  that  can  bring  to  my  obser- 
vation the  doings  or  the  deliberations  which 
are  taking  place  in  the  sanctuary  of  the 
Eternal.  I  may  put  into  the  registers  of 
my  belief  all  that  comes  home  to  me  through 
the  senses  of  the  outer  man,  or  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  inner  man.  But  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  can  tell  me  of  the 
purposes  of  God — can  tell  me  of  the  trans- 
actions or  the  designs  of  his  sublime  mon- 
archy— can  tell  me  of  the  goings  forth  of 
Him  who  is  from  everlasting  unto  everlast- 
ing— can  tell  me  of  the  march  and  the  move- 
ments of  that  great  administration  which 
embraces  all  worlds,  and  takes  into  its  wide 
and  comprehensive  survey  the  mighty  roll 
of  innumerable  ages.  It  is  true,  that  my 
fangy  may  break  its  impetuous  way  into  this 
lofty  and  inaccessible  field ;  and  through  the 
devices  of  my  heart,  which  are  many,  the 
visions  of  an  ever-shifting  theology  may  take 
their. alternate  sway  over  me;  but  the  coun- 
sel of  the  Lord,  it  shall  stand.  And  I  repeat 
it,  that  if  true  to  the  leading  principle  of 
that  philosophy  which  has  poured  such  a 
flood  of  light  over  the  mysteries  of  nature, 
we  shall  dismiss  every  self-formed  concep- 


84      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

tion  of  our  own,  and  wait  in  all  the  humility 
of  conscious  ignorance,  till  the  Lord  himself 
shall  break  his  silence,  and  make  his  counsel 
known  by  an  act  of  communication.  And 
now  that  a  professed  communication  is  before 
me,  and  that  it  has  all  the  solidity  of  the 
experimental  evidence  on  its  side,  and  noth- 
ing but  the  reveries  of  a  daring  speculation 
to  oppose  it,  what  is  the  consistent,  what 
is*  the  rational,  what  is  the  philosophical  use 
that  should  be  made  of  this  document,  but 
i<>  set  me  down,  like  a  school-boy,  to  the 
work  of  turning  its  pages  and  conning  its 
lessons,  and  submitting  the  every  exercise 
of  my  judgment  to  its  information  and  its 
testimony  ?  We  know  that  there  is  a  super- 
ficial philosophy,  which  casts  the  glare  of  a 
most  seducing  brilliancy  around  it,  and  spurns 
the  Bible,  with  all  the  doctrine  and  all  the 
piety  of  the  Bible,  away  from  it;  and  has 
infused  the  spirit  of  Antichrist  into  many  of 
the  literary  establishments  of  the  age;  but 
it  is  not  the  solid,  the  profound,  the  cautious 
spirit  of  that  philosophy  which  has  done  so 
much  to  ennoble  the  modern  period  of  our 
world ;  for  the  more  that  this  spirit  is  cul- 
tivated and  understood,  the  more  will  it  be 


MODESTY  OF   TRUE  SCIENCE.  85 

found  in  alliance  with  that  spirit,  in  virtue 
of  which  all  that  exalteth  itself  against  the 
knowledge  of  Grod  is  humbled,  and  all  lofty 
imaginations  are  cast  down,  and  every  thought 
of  the  heart  is  brought  into  the  captivity  of 
the  obedience  of  Christ. 


i 

86      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 


DISCOURSE    III. 

OX  THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  DIVINE  CONDESCENSION. 

"Who  is  like  unto  the  Lord  our  God,  who  dwelleth  on  high, 
\vho  humbleth  himself  to  behold  the  things  that  are  in  heaven, 
and  in  the  earth  1"  Psalm  113  :  5,  6. 

IN  our  last  discourse  we  attempted  to  ex- 
pose  the  total  want  of  evidence  for  the  asser- 
tion of  the  infidel  astronomer ;  and  this  reduces 
the  whole  of  our  remaining  controversy  with 
him  to  the  business  of  arguing  against  a  mere 
possibility.  Still,  however,  the  answer  is  not 
so  complete  as  it  might  be,  till  the  soundness 
of  the  argument  be  attended  to,  as  well  as 
the  credibility  of  the  assertion;  or,  in  other 
words,  let  us  admit  the  assertion,  and  take  a 
view  of  the  reasoning  which  has  been  con- 
structed upon  it. 

We  have  already  attempted  to  lay  before 
you  the  wonderful  extent  of  that  space,  teem- 
ing with  unnumbered  worlds,  which  modern 
science  has  brought  within  the  circle  of  its 
discoveries.  We  even  ventured  to  expatiate 


THE    DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  87 

on  those  tracks  of  infinity  which  lie  on  the 
other  side  of  all  that  eye  or  that  telescope 
hath  made  known  to  us — to  shoot  afar  into 
those  ulterior  regions  which  are  beyond  the 
limits  of  our  astronomy — to  impress  you  with 
the  rashness  of  the  imagination  that  the  cre- 
ative energy  of  Grod  had  sunk  exhausted  by 
the  magnitude  of  its  efforts,  at  that  very  line 
through  which  the  art  of  man,  lavished  as 
it  has  been  on  the  work  of  perfecting  the 
instruments  of  vision,  has  not  yet  been  able 
to  penetrate :  and  upon  all  this  we  hazarded 
the  assertion,  that  though  all  these  visible 
heavens  were  to  rush  into  annihilation,  and 
the  besom  of  the  Almighty's  wrath  were  to 
sweep  from  the  face  of  the  universe  those 
millions,  and  millions  more  of  suns  and  of 
systems,  which  lie  within  the  grasp  of  our 
actual  observation,  that  this  event,  which  to 
our  eye  would  leave  so  wide  and  so  dismal 
a  solitude  behind  it,  might  be  nothing  in  the 
eye  of  Him  who  could  take  in  the  whole,  but 
the  disappearance  of  a  little  speck  from  that 
field  of  created  things  which  the  hand  of  his 
omnipotence  had  thrown  around  him. 

But  to  press  home  the  sentiment  of  the 
text,  it  is  not  necessary  to  stretch  the  imag- 


88      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ination  beyond  the  limit  of  our  actual  dis- 
coveries. It  is  enough  to  strike  our  minds 
with  the  insignificance  of  this  world,  and  of 
all  who  inhabit  it,  to  bring  it  into  measure- 
ment with  that  mighty  assemblage  of  worlds 
which  lie  open  to  the  eye  of  man,  aided  as  it 
has  been  by  the  inventions  of  his  genius. 
"When  we  told  you  of  the  eighty  millions  of 
suns,  each  occupying  his  own  independent 
territory  in  space,  and  dispensing  his  own 
influences  over  a  cluster  of  tributary  worlds, 
this  world  could  not  fail  to  sink  into  little- 
ness in  the  eye  of  him  who  looked  to  all  the 
magnitude  and  variety  which  are  around  it. 
We  gaAre  you  but  a  feeble  image  of  our  com- 
parative insignificance,  when  we  said  that 
the  glories  of  an  extended  forest  would  suffer 
no  more  from  the  fall  of  a  single  leaf,  than 
the  glories  of  this  extended  universe  would 
suffer,  though  the  globe  we  tread,  "and  all 
that  it  inherit,  should  dissolve."  And  when 
we  lift  our'conceptions  to  Him  who  has  peo- 
pled immensity  with  all  these  wonders — who 
sits  enthroned  on  the  magnificence  of  his  own 
works,  and  by  one  sublime  idea  can  embrace 
the  whole  extent  of  that  boundless  amplitude 
which  he  has  filled  with  the  trophies  of  his 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  89 

divinity,  we  cannot  but  resign  our  whole 
heart  to  the  psalmist's  exclamation  of,  "  What 
is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him?  and 
the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?" 

Now  mark  the  use  to  which  all  this  has 
been  turned  by  the  genius  of  infidelity. 
Such  an  humble  portion  of  the  universe  as 
ours  could  never  have  been  the  object  of 
such  high  and  distinguishing  attentions  as 
Christianity  has  assigned  to  it.  G-od  would 
not  have  manifested  himself  in  the  flesh  for 
the  salvation  of  so  paltry  a  world.  The  mon- 
arch of  a  whole  continent  would  never  move 
from  his  capital,  and  lay  aside  the  splendor 
of  royalty,  and  subject  himself  for  months,  or 
for  years,  to  perils  and  poverty  and  persecu- 
tion, and  take  up  his  abode  in  some  small 
islet  of  his  dominions  which,  though  swal- 
lowed by  an  earthquake,  could  not  be  missed 
amid  the  glories  of  so  wide  an  empire ;  and 
all  this  to  regain  the  lost  affections  of  a  few 
families  upon  its  surface.  And  neither  would 
the  eternal  Son  of  Grod — he  who  is  revealed 
to  us  as  having  made  all  worlds,  and  as 
holding  an  empire,  amid  the  splendors  of 
which,  the  globe  that  we  inherit  is  shaded 
in  insignificance  —  neither  would  he  strip 


90      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

himself  of  the  glory  he  had  with  the  Father 
before  the  world  was,  and  light  on  this  lower 
scene,  for  the  purpose  imputed  to  him  in  the 
New  Testament.  Impossible  that  the  con- 
cerns of  this  puny  ball,  which  floats  its  little 
round  among  an  infinity  of  larger  worlds, 
should  be  of  such  mighty  account  in  the 
plans  of  the  Eternal,  or  should  have  given 
birth  in  heaven  to  so  wonderful  a  movement 
as  the  Son  of  God  putting  on  the  form  of  our 
degraded  species  and  sojourning  among  us, 
and  sharing  in  all  our  infinnities,  and  crown- 
ing the  whole  scene  of  humiliation  by  the 
disgrace  and  the  agonies  of  a  cruel  martyr- 
dom. 

This  has  been  started  as  a  difficulty  in 
the  way  of  the  Christian  revelation ;  and  it 
is  the  boast  of  many  of  our  philosophical  infi- 
dels, that  by  the  light  of  modern  discovery 
the  light  of  the  New  Testament  is  eclipsed 
and  overborne ;  and  the  mischief  is  not  con- 
fined to  philosophers,  for  the  argument  has 
got  into  other  hands,  and  the  popular  illus- 
trations that  are  now  given  to  the  sublimest 
truths  of  science,  have  widely  disseminated 
all  the  Deism  that  has  been  grafted  upon 
it;  and  the  high  tone  of  a  decided  contempt 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  91 

for  the  gospel  is  now  associated  with  the 
flippancy  of  superficial  acquirements ;  and 
while  the  venerable  Newton,  whose  genius 
threw  open  these  mighty  fields  of  contempla- 
tion, found  a  fit  exercise  for  his  powers  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible,  there  are  thou- 
sands and  tens  of  thousands  who,  though 
walking  in  the  light  which  he  holds  out  to 
them,  are  seduced  by  a  complacency  which 
he  never  felt,  and  inflated  by  a  pride  which 
never  entered  into  his  pious  and  philosoph- 
ical bosom,  and  whose  only  notice  of  the 
Bible  is  to  depreciate  and  to  deride  and  to 
disown  it. 

Before  entering  into  what  we  conceive  to 
be  the  right  answer  to  this  objection,  let  us 
previously  observe,  that  it  goes  to  strip  the 
Deity  of  an  attribute  which  forms  a  wonder- 
ful addition  to  the  glories  of  his  incompre- 
hensible character.  It  is  indeed  a  mighty 
evidence  of  the  strength  of  his  arm,  that  so 
many  millions  of  worlds  are  suspended  on  it ; 
but  it  would  surely  make  the  high  attribute 
of  his  power  more  illustrious,  if,  while  it  expa- 
tiated at  large  among  the  suns  and  the  sys- 
tems of  astronomy,  it  could  at  the  very  same 
instant  be  impressing  a  movement  and  a 


92  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

direction  on  all  the  minuter  wheels  of  that 
machinery  which  is  working  incessantly 
around  us.  It  forms,  a  noble  demonstration 
of  his  wisdom,  that  he  gives  unremitting 
operation  to  those  laws  which  uphold  the 
stability  of  this  great  universe ;  but  it  would 
go  to  heighten  that  wisdom  inconceivably, 
if,  while  equal  to  the  magnificent  task  of 
maintaining  the  order  and  harmony  of  the 
spheres,  it  was  lavishing  its  inexhaustible 
resources  on  the  beauties  and  varieties  and 
arrangements  of  every  one  scene,  however 
humble,  of  every  one  field,  however  narrow,  of 
the  creation  we  had  formed.  It  is  a  cheering 
evidence  of  the  delight  he  takes  in  commu- 
nicating happiness,  that  the  whole  of  im- 
mensity should  be  so  strewed  with  the  habi- 
tations of  life  and  of  intelligence ;  but  it 
would  surely  bring  home  the  evidence  with 
a  nearer  and  a  more  affecting  impression  to 
every  bosom,  did  we  know,  that  at  the  very 
time  his  benignant  regard  took  in  the  mighty 
circle  of  created  beings,  there  was  not  a 
single  family  overlooked  by  him,  and  that 
every  individual  in  every  corner  of  his  domin- 
ions was  as  effectually  seen  to,  as  if  the 
object  of  an  exclusive  and  undivided  care. 


THE  DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  93 

It  is  our  imperfection,  that  we  cannot  give 
our  attention  to  more  than  one  object  at  one 
and  the  same  instant  of  time ;  but  surely  it 
would  elevate  our  every  idea  of  the  perfec- 
tions of  God,  did  we  know,  that  while  his 
comprehensive  mind  could  grasp  the  whole 
amplitude  of  nature,  to  the  very  outermost  of 
its  boundaries,  he  had  an  attentive  eye  fast- 
ened on  the  very  humblest  of  its  objects,  and 
pondered  every  thought  of  my  heart  and 
noticed  every  footstep  of  -  my  goings,  and 
treasured  up  in  his  remembrance  every  turn 
and  every  movement  of  my  history. 

And  lastly,  to  apply  this  train  of  senti- 
ment to  the  matter  before  us,  let  us  suppose 
that  one  among  the  countless  myriads  of 
worlds  should  be  visited  by  a  moral  pesti- 
lence, which  spread  through  all  its  people, 
and  brought  them  under  the  doom  of  a  law 
whose  sanctions  were  unrelenting  and  immu- 
table ;  it  were  no  disparagement  to  God, 
should  he,  by  an  act  of  righteous  indignation, 
sweep  this  offence  away  from  the  universe 
which  it  deformed ;  nor  should  we  wonder, 
though  among  the  multitude  of  other  worlds, 
from  which  the  ear  of  the  Almighty  was 
regaled  with  the  songs  of  praise,  and  the 


94       ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

incense  of  a  pure  adoration  ascended  to  his 
throne,  he  should  leave  the  strayed  and  soli- 
tary world  to  perish  in  the  guilt  of  its  rebel- 
lion. But,  tell  me,  O  tell  me,  would  it  not 
throw  the  softening  of  a  most  exquisite  ten- 
derness over  the  character  of  God,  should  we 
see  him  putting  forth  his  every  expedient 
to  reclaim  to  himself  those  children. who  had 
wandered  away  from  him ;  and  few  as  they 
were  when  compared  with  the  host  of  his 
obedient  worshippers,  would  it  not  just  im- 
part to  his  attribute  of  compassion  the  infinity 
of  the  Godhead,  that  rather  than  lose  the 
single  world  which  had  turned  to  its  own 
way,  he  should  send  the  messengers  of  peace 
to  woo  and  to  welcome  it  back  again;  and 
if  justice  demanded  so  mighty  a  sacrifice,  and 
the  law  behooved  to  be  so  magnified  and  made 
honorable,  tell  me  whether  it  would  not  throw 
a  moral  sublime  over  the  goodness  of  the 
Deity,  should  he  lay  upon  his  own  Son  the 
burden  of  its  atonement,  that  he  might  again 
smile  upon  the  world,  and  hold  out  the  sceptre 
of  invitation  to  all  its  families  ? 

We  avow  it,  therefore,  that  this  infidel 
argument  goes  to  expunge  a  perfection  from 
the  character  of  God.  The  more  we  know  of 


THE   DIVINE   CONITESCENSION.  95 

the  extent  of  nature,  should  not  we  have  the 
loftier  conception  of  Him  who  sits  in  high 
authority  over  the  concerns  of  so  wide  a  uni- 
verse ?  But  is  it  not  adding  to  the  bright 
catalogue  of  his  other  attributes  to  say,  that 
while  magnitude  does  not  overpower  him, 
minuteness  cannot  escape  him,  and  variety 
cannot  bewilder  him ;  and  that  at  the  very 
time  while  the  mind  of  the  Deity  is  abroad 
over  the  whole  vastness  of  creation,  there  is 
not  one  particle  of  matter,  there  is  not  one 
individual  principle  of  rational  or  of  animal 
existence,  there  is  not  one  single  world  in 
that  expanse  which  teems  with  them,  that 
his  eye  does  not  discern  as  constantly,  and 
his  hand  does  not  guide  as  unerringly,  and 
his  Spirit  does  not  watch  and  care  for  as  vigi- 
lantly, as  if  it  formed  the  one  and  exclusive 
object  of  his  attention? 

The  thing  is  inconceivable  to  us,  whose 
minds  are  so  easily  distracted  by  a  number 
of  objects,  and  this  is  the  secret  principle  of 
the  whole  infidelity  I  am  now  alluding  to. 
To  bring  God  to  the  level  of  our  own  compre- 
hension, we  would  clothe  him  in  the  impo- 
tency  of  a  man.  "We  would  transfer  to  his 
wonderful  mind  all  the  imperfection  of  our 


9G  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

own  faculties.  When  we  are  taught  by 
astronomy  that  he  has  millions  of  worlds  to 
look  after,  and  thus  add  in  one  direction  to 
the  glories  of  his  character,  we  take  away 
from  them  in  another,  by  saying  that  each  of 
these  worlds  must  be  looked  after  imperfectly. 
The  use  that  we  make  of  a  discovery  which 
should  heighten  our  every  conception  of  God, 
and  humble  us  into  the  sentiment  that  a 
Being  of  such  mysterious  elevation  is  to  us 
unfathomable,  is  to  sit  in  judgment  over  him, 
aye,  and  to  pronounce  such  a  judgment  as 
degrades  him,  and  keeps  him  down  to  the 
standard  of  our  own  paltry  imagination !  We 
are  introduced  by  modern  science  to  a  mul- 
titude of  other  suns  and  of  other  systems,  and 
the  perverse  interpretation  we  put  upon  the 
fact,  that  God  can  diffuse  the  benefits  of  his 
power  and  of  his  goodness  over  such  a  variety 
of  worlds,  is,  that  he  cannot,  or  will  not, 
bestow  so  much  goodness  on  one  of  those 
worlds  as  a  professed  revelation  from  heaven 
has  announced  to  us.  While  we  enlarge  the 
provinces  of  his  empire,  we  tarnish  all  the 
glory  of  this  enlargement,  by  saying,  he  has 
so  much  to  care  for,  that  the  care  of  every 
one  province  must  be  less  complete  and  less 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  97 

vigilant  and  less  effectual  than  it  would 
otherwise  have  been.  By  the  discoveries  of 
modem  science,  we  multiply  the  places  of 
the  creation ;  but  along  with  this,  we  would 
impair  the  attribute  of  his  eye  being  in  every 
place  to  behold  the  evil  and  the  good;  and 
thus,  while  we  magnify  one  of  his  perfec- 
tions, we  do  it  at  the  expense  of  another; 
and  to  bring  him  within  the  grasp  of  our 
feeble  capacity,  we  would  deface  one  of  the 
glories  of  that  character  which  it  is  our  part 
to  adore,  as  higher  than  all  thought,  and  as 
greater  than  all  comprehension. 

The  objection  we  are  discussing  I  shall 
state  again  in  a  single  sentence.  Since 
astronomy  has  unfolded  to  us  such  a  number 
of  worlds,  it  is  not  likely  that  God  would 
pay  so  much  attention  to  this  one  world,  and 
set  up  such  wonderful  provisions  for  its  ben- 
efit, as  are  announced  to  us  in  the  Christian 
revelation.  This  objection  will  have  received 
its  answer,  if  we  can  meet  it  by  the  follow- 
ing position :  that  G-od,  in  addition  to  the 
bare  faculty  of  dwelling  on  a  multiplicity  of 
objects  at  one  and  the  same  time,  has  this 
faculty  in  such  wonderful  perfection,  that  he 
can  attend  as  fully  and  provide  as  richly  and 

Chr.  Rev.  5 


98  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

manifest  all  his  attributes  as  illustriously,  on 
every  one  of  these  objects,  as  if  the  rest  had 
no  existence  and  no  place  whatever  in  his 
government  or  in  his  thoughts. 

For  the  evidence  of  this  position  we  ap- 
peal, in  the  first  place,  to  the  personal  history 
of  each  individual  among  you.  Only  grant 
us,  that  God  never  loses  sight  of  any  one 
thing  he  has  created,  and  that  no  created 
thing  can  continue  either  to '  be  or  to  act 
independently  of  him ;  and  then,  even  upon 
the  face  of  this  world,  humble  as  it  is  on  the 
great  scale  of  astronomy,  how  widely  diversi- 
fied, and  how  multiplied  into  so  many  thou- 
sand distinct  exercises,  is  the  attention  of 
God.  His  eye  is  upon  every  hour  of  my 
existence.  His  Spirit  is  intimately  present 
with  every  thought  of  rny  heart.  His  inspi- 
ration gives  birth  to  every  purpose  within 
me.  His  hand  impresses  a  direction  on  every 
footstep  of  my  goings.  Every  breath  I  inhale 
is  drawn  by  an  energy  which  God  deals  out 
to  me.  This  body,  which  upon  the  slightest 
derangement  would  become  the  prey  of  death, 
or  of  woful  suffering,  is  now  at  ease,  because 
he  at  this  moment  is  warding  off  from  me 
a  thousand  dangers,  and  upholding  the  thou- 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  99 

sand  movements  of  its  complex  and  delicate 
machinery.  His  presiding  influence  keeps 
by  me  through  the  whole  current  of  my  rest- 
less and  ever-changing  history.  When  I 
walk  by  the  wayside,  he  is  along  with  me. 
When  I  enter  into  company,  amid  all  my 
forgetfulness  of  him,  he  never  forgets  me. 
In  the  silent  watches  of  the  night,  when  iny 
eyelids  have  closed,  and  my  spirit  has  sunk 
into  unconsciousness,  the  observant  eye  of 
Him  who  never  slumbers  is  upon  me.  I  can- 
not fly  from  his  presence.  Go  where  I  will, 
he  tends  me  and  watches  me  and  cares  for 
me;  and  the  same  Being  who  is  now  at 
work  in  the  remotest  domains  of  nature  and 
of  providence,  is  also  at  my  right  hand  to 
eke  out  to  me  every  moment  of  my  being, 
and  to  uphold  me  in  the  exercise  of  all  my 
feelings,  and  of  all  my  faculties. 

Now,  what  God  is  doing  with  me,  he  is 
doing  with  every  distinct  individual  of  this 
world's  population.  The  intimacy  of  his 
presence  and  attention  and  care  reaches  to 
one  and  to  all  of  them.  With  a  mind  unbur- 
dened by  the  vastness  of  all  its  other  con- 
cerns, he  can  prosecute,  without  distraction, 
the  government  and  guardianship  of  every 


100  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

one  son  and  daughter  of  the  species.  And  is 
it  for  us,  in  the  face  of  all  this  experience, 
ungratefully  to  draw  a  limit  around  the  per- 
fections of  God — to  aver  that  the  multitude 
of  other  worlds  has  withdrawn  any  portion  of 
his  benevolence  from  the  one  we  occupy ;  or 
that  He,  whose  eye  is  upon  every  separate 
family  of  the  earth,  would  not  lavish  all  the 
riches  of  his  unsearchable  attributes  on  some 
high  plan  of  pardon  and  immortality,  in  be- 
half of  its  countless  generations  ? 

But,  secondly,  were  the  mind  of  God  so 
fatigued  and  so  occupied  with  the  care  of 
other  worlds,  as  the  objection  presumes  him 
to  be,  should  we  not  see  some  traces  of  neg- 
lect, or  of  carelessness,  in  his  management  of 
ours?  Should  we  not  behold,  in  many  a 
field  of  observation,  the  evidence  of  its  Master 
being  overcrowded  with  the  variety  of  his 
other  engagements  ?  A  man  oppressed  by  a 
multitude  of  business,  would  simplify  and 
reduce  the  work  of  any  new  concern  that 
was  devolved  upon  him.  Now,  point  out 
a  single  mark  of  God  being  thus  oppressed. 
Astronomy  has  laid  open  to  us  so  many  realms 
of  creation  which  were  before  unheard  of, 
that  the  world  we  inhabit  shrinks  into  one 


THE   DIVINE    CONDESCENSION.  101 

remote  and  solitary  province  of  his  wide  mon- 
archy. Tell  me,  then,  if  in  any  one  field  of 
this  province  which  man  has  access  to,  you 
witness  a  single  indication  of  God  sparing 
himself — of  G-od  reduced  to  languor  by  the 
weight  of  his  other  employments — of  God 
sinking  under  the  burden  of  that  vast  super- 
intendence which  lies  upon  him  —  of  God 
being  exhausted,  as  one  of  ourselves  would 
be,  by  any  number  of  concerns,  however  great, 
by  any  variety  of  them,  however  manifold ; 
and  do  you  not  perceive,  in  that  mighty  pro- 
fusion of  wisdom  and  of  goodness  which  is 
scattered  everywhere  around  us,  that  the 
thoughts  of  this  unsearchable  Being  are  not 
as  our  thoughts,  nor  his  ways  as  our  ways  ? 

My  time  does  not  suffer  me  to  dwell  on 
this  topic,  because,  before  I  conclude,  I  must 
hasten  to  another  illustration.  But  when  I 
look  abroad  on  the  wondrous  scene  that  is 
immediately  before  me,  and  see  that  in  every 
direction  it  is  a  scene  of  the  most  various 
and  unwearied  activity,  and  expatiate  on  all 
the  beauties  of  that  garniture  by  which  it  is 
adorned,  and  on  all  the  prints  of  design  and 
of  benevolence  which  abound  in  it,  and  think 
that  the  same  God  who  holds  the  universe, 


102  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

with  its  every  system,  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  pencils  every  flower,  and  gives  nourish- 
ment to  every  hlade  of  grass,  and  actuates 
the  movements  of  every  living  thing,  and  is 
not  disabled  by  the  weight  of  his  other  cares 
from  enriching  the  humble  department  of 
nature  I  occupy,  with  charms  and  accommo- 
dations of  the  most  unbounded  variety ;  then 
surely,  if  a  message  bearing  every  mark  of 
authenticity  should  profess  to  come  to  me 
from  God,  and  inform  me  of  his  mighty 
doings  for  the  happiness  of  our  species,  it  is 
not  for  me,  in  the  face  of  all  this  evidence, 
to  reject  it  as  a  tale  of  imposture,  because 
astronomers  have  told  me  that  he  has  so 
many  other  worlds  and  other  orders  of  beings 
to  attend  to ;  and  when  I  think  that  it  were 
a  deposition  of  him  from  his  supremacy  over 
the  creatures  he  has  formed,  should  a  single 
sparrow  fall  to  the  ground  without  his  ap- 
pointment, then  let  science  and  sophistry  try 
to  cheat  me  of  my  comfort  as  they  may,  I 
will  not  let  go  the  anchor  of  my  confidence  in 
God — I  will  not  be  afraid,  for  I  am  of  more 
value  than  many  sparrows. 

But  thirdly,  it  was  the  telescope,  that  by 
piercing  the  obscurity  which  lies  between  us 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  103 

and  distant  worlds,  put  infidelity  in  posses- 
sion of  the  argument  against  which  we  are 
now  contending.  But  ahout  the  time  of  its 
invention  another  instrument  was  formed, 
which  laid  open  a  scene  no  less  wonderful, 
and  rewarded  the  inquisitive  spirit  of  man 
with  a  discovery  which  serves  to  neutralize 
the  whole  of  this-  argument.  This  was  the 
microscope.  The  one  led  me  to  see  a  system 
in  every  star;  the  other  leads  me  to  see  a 
world  in  every  atom.  The  one  taught  me 
that  this  mighty  glohe,  with  the  whole  burden 
of  its  people  and  of  its  countries,  is  but  a 
grain  of  sand  on  the  high  field  of  immensity ; 
the  other  teaches  me  that,  every  grain  of 
sand  may  harbor  within  it  the  tribes  and  the 
families  of  a  busy  population.  The  one  told 
me  of  the  insignificance  of  the  world  I  tread 
upon ;  the  other  redeems  it  from  all  its 
insignificance,  for  it  tells  me  that  in  the 
leaves  of  every  forest,  and  in  the  flowers  of 
every  garden,  and  in  the  waters  of  every  riv- 
ulet, there  are  worlds  teeming  with  life,  and 
numberless  as  are  the  glories  of  the  firma- 
ment. The  one  has  suggested  to  me,  that 
beyond  and  above  all  that  is  visible  to  man, 
there  may  lie  fields  of  creation  which  sweep 


104  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

immeasurably  along,  and  carry  the  impress  of 
the  Almighty's  hand  to  the  remotest  scenes 
of  the  universe ;  the  other  suggests  to  me, 
that  within  and  beneath  all  that  minuteness 
which  the  aided  eye  of  man  has  been  able  to 
explore,  there  may  be  a  region  of  invisibles ; 
and  that  could  we  draw  aside  the  mysterious 
curtain  which  shrouds  it  from  our  senses,  we 
might  there  see  a  theatre  of  as  many  wonders 
as  astronomy  has  unfolded,  a  universe  within 
the  compass  of  a  point  so  small  as  to  elude 
all  the  powers  of  the  microscope,  but  where 
the  wonder-working  God  finds  room  for  the 
exercise  of  all  his  attributes,  where  he  can 
raise  another  mechanism  of  worlds,  and  fill 
and  animate  them  all  with  the  evidences  of 
his  glory. 

Now,  mark  how  all  this  may  be  made  to 
meet  the  argument  of  our  infidel  astronomer. 
By  the  telescope  they  have  discovered  that 
no  magnitude,  however  vast,  is  beyond  the 
grasp  of  the  Divinity.  But  by  the  microscope 
we  have  also  discovered,  that  no  minuteness, 
however  shrunk  from  the  notice  of  the  human 
eye,  is  beneath  the  condescension  of  his 
regard.  Every  addition  to  the  powers  of  the 
one  instrument,  extends  the  limit  of  his  vis- 


THE   DIVINE    CONDESCENSION.  105 

ible  dominions ;  but  by  every  addition  to  the 
powers  of  the  other  instrument,  we  see  each 
part  of  them  more  crowded  than  before  with 
the  wonders  of  his  unwearying  hand.  The 
one  is  constantly  widening  the  circle  of  his 
territory ;  the  other  is  as  constantly  filling 
up  its  separate  portions  with  all  that  is  rich 
and  various  and  exquisite.  In  a  word,  by 
the  one  I  am  told  that  the  Almighty  is  now 
at  work  in  regions  more  distant  than  geom- 
etry has  ever  measured,  and  among  worlds 
more  manifold  than  numbers  have  ever  reach- 
ed ;  but  by  the  other  I  am  also  told,  that 
with  a  mind  to  comprehend  the  whole  in  the 
vast  compass  of  its  generality,  he  has  also  a 
mind  to  concentrate  a  close  and  a  separate 
attention  on  each  and  on  all  of  its  particulars ; 
and  that  the  same  God  who  sends  forth  an 
upholding  influence  among  the  orbs  and  the 
movements  of  astronomy,  can  fill  the  recesses 
of  every  single  atom  with  the  intimacy  of  his 
presence,  and  travel  in  all  the  greatness  of 
his  unimpaired  attributes,  upon  every  one  spot 
and  corner  of  the  universe  he  has  formed. 

They,  therefore,  who  think  that  G-od  will 
not  put  forth  such  a  power  and  such  a  good- 
ness and  such  a  condescension  in  behalf  of 

5* 


106  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

this  world,  as  are  ascribed  to  him  in  the 
New  Testament,  because  he  has  so  many 
other  worlds  to  attend  to,  think  of  him  as  a 
man.  They  confine  their  view  to  the  infor- 
mations of  the  telescope,  and  forget  altogether 
the  informations  of  the  other  instrument. 
They  only  find  room  in  their  minds  for  his 
one  attribute  of  a  large  and  general  superin- 
tendence, and  keep  out  of  their  remembrance 
the  equally  impressive  proofs  we  have  for.  his 
other  attribute  of  a  minute  and  multiplied 
attention  to  all  that  diversity  of  operations, 
where  it  is  he  that  worketh  all  in  all.  And 
when  I  think  that  as  one  of  the  instruments 
of  philosophy  has  heightened  our  every  im- 
pression of  the  first  of  these  attributes,  so 
another  instrument  has  no  less  heightened 
our  impression  of  the  second  of  them ;  then  I 
can  no  longer  resist  the  conclusion,  that  it 
would  be  a  transgression  of  sound  argument, 
as  well  as  a  daring  of  impiety,  to  draw  a 
limit  around  the  doings  of  this  unsearchable 
God ;  and  should  a  professed  revelation  from 
heaven  tell  me  of  an  act  of  condescension, 
in  behalf  of  some  separate  world,  so  won- 
derful that  angels  desired  to  look  into  it,  and 
the  eternal  Son  had  to  move  from  his  seat 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  107 

of  glory  to  carry  it  into  accomplishment,  all 
I  ask  is  the  evidence  of  such  a  revelation; 
for  let  it  tell  me  as  much  as  it  may  of  G-od 
letting  himself  down  for  the  henefit  of  one 
single  province  of  his  dominions,  this  is  no 
more  than  what  I  see  lying  scattered,  in 
numberless  examples,  before  me,  and  run- 
ning through  the  whole  line  of  my  recol- 
lections, and  meeting  me  in  every  walk  of 
observation  to  which  I  can  betake  mys.elf; 
and  now  that  the  microscope  has  unveiled 
the  wonders  of  another  region,  I  see  strewed 
around  me,  with  a  profusion  which  baffles 
my  every  attempt  to  comprehend  it,  the  evi- 
dence that  there  is  no  one  portion  of  the  uni- 
verse of  God  too  minute  for  his  notice,  nor 
too  humble  for  the  visitations  of  his  care. 

As  the  end  of  all  these  illustrations,  let 
me  bestow  a  single  paragraph  on  what  1 
conceive  to  be  the  precise  state  of  this  argu- 
ment. 

It  is  a  wonderful  thing  that  God  should 
be  so  unencumbered  by  the  concerns  of  a 
whole  universe,  that  he  can  give  a  constant 
attention  to  every  moment  of  every  indi- 
vidual in  this  world's  population.  But  won- 
derful as  it  is,  you  do  not  hesitate  to  admit 


108      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

it  as  true,  on  the  evidence  of  your  own  recol- 
lections. It  is  a  wonderful  thing,  that  He 
whose  eye  is  at  every  instant  on  so  many 
worlds,  should  have  peopled  the  world  we 
inhabit  with  all  the  traces  of  the  varied 
design  and  benevolence  which  abound  in  it. 
But  great  as  the  wonder  is,  you  do  not  allow 
so  much  as  the  shadow  of  improbability  to 
darken  it,  for  its  reality  is  what  you  actu- 
ally, witness,  and  you  never  think  of  ques- 
tioning the  evidence  of  observation.  It  is 
wonderful,  it  is  passing  wonderful,  that  the 
same  God,  whose  presence  is  diffused  through 
immensity,  and  who  spreads  the  ample  can- 
opy of  his  administration  over  all  its  dwelling- 
places,  should,  with  an  energy  as  fresh  and 
as  unexpended  as  if  he  had  only  begun  the 
work  of  creation,  turn  him  to  the  neighbor- 
hood around  us,  and  lavish  on  its  every  hand- 
breadth  all  the  exuberance  of  his  goodness, 
and  crowd  it  with  the  many  thousand  vari- 
eties of  conscious  existence.  But  be  the 
wonder  incomprehensible  as  it  may,  you  do 
not  suffer  in  your  mind  the  burden  of  a 
single  doubt  to  lie  upon  it,  because  you  do 
not  question  the  report  of  the  microscope. 
You  do  not  refuse  its  information,  nor  turn 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  109 

away  from  it  as  an  incompetent  channel  of 
evidence.  But  to  bring  it  still  nearer  to  the 
point  at  issue,  there  are  many  who  never 
looked  through  a  microscope,  but  who  rest 
an  implicit  faith  in  all  its  revelations;  and 
upon  what  evidence  ?  I  would  ask.  Upon 
the  evidence  of  testimony — upon  the  credit 
they  give  to  the  authors  of  the  books  they 
have  read,  and  the  belief  they  put  in  the 
record  of  their  observations.  Now,  at  this 
point  I  make  my  stand.  It  is  wonderful 
that  God  should  be  so  interested  in  the 
redemption  of  a  single  world,  as  to  send 
forth  his  well-beloved  Son  upon  the  errand, 
and  he  to  accomplish  it  should,  mighty  to 
save,  put  forth  all  his  strength,  and  travail 
in  the  greatness  of  it.  But  such  wonders  as 
these  have  already  multiplied  upon  you ;  and 
when  evidence  is  given  of  their  truth,  you 
have  resigned  your  every  judgment  of  the 
unsearchable  God,  and  rested  in  the  faith  of 
them.  I  demand,  in  the  name  of  sound  and 
consistent  philosophy,  that  you  do  the  same 
in  the  matter  before  us,  and  take  it  up  as 
a  question  of  evidence,  and  examine  that 
medium  of  testimony  through  which  the  mir- 
acles and  informations  of  the  gospel  have 


110  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

come  to  your  door,  and  go  not  to  admit  as 
argument  here  what  would  not  be  admitted 
as  argument  in  any  of  the  analogies  of  nature 
and  observation,  and  take  along  with  you 
in  this  field  of  inquiry  a  lesson  which  you 
should  have  learned  upon  other  fields,  even 
the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom 
and  the  knowledge  of  God,  that  his  judg- 
ments are  unsearchable,  and  his  ways  are 
past  finding  out. 

I  do  not  enter  at  all  into  the  positive 
evidence  for  the  truth  of  the  Christian  rev- 
elation, my  single  aim  at  present  being  to 
dispose  of  one  of  the  objections  which  is 
conceived  to  stand  in  the  way  of  it.  Let  me 
suppose  then  that  this  is  done  to  the  satis- 
faction of  a  philosophical  inquirer,  and  that 
the  evidence  is  sustained,  and  that  the  same 
mind  that  is  familiarized  to  all  the  sublim- 
ities of  natural  science,  and  has  been  in  the 
habit  of  contemplating  God  in  association 
with  all  the  magnificence  which  is  around 
him,  shall  be  brought  to  submit  its  thoughts 
to  the  captivity  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ; 
0,  with  what  veneration  and  gratitude  and 
wonder  should  he  look  on  the  descent  of  Him 
into  this  lower  world,  who  made  all  these 


THE    DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  Ill 

things,  and  without  whom  was  not  any  thing 
made  that  was  made.  What  a  grandeur 
does  it  throw  over  every  step  in  the  redemp- 
tion of  a  fallen  world,  to  think  of  its  heing 
done  by  Him  who  unrobed  him  of  the  glories 
of  so  wide  a  monarchy,  and  came  to  this 
humblest  of  its  provinces  in  the  disguise  of 
a  servant,  and  took  upon  him  the  form  of 
our  degraded  species,  and  let  himself  down 
to  sorrows  and  to  sufferings  and  to  death  for 
us.  In  this  love  of  an  expiring  Saviour  to 
those  for  whom  in  agony  he  poured  out  his 
soul,  there  is  a  height  and  a  depth  and  a 
length  and  a  breadth  more  than  I  can  com- 
prehend ;  and  let  me  never,  from  this  mo- 
ment, neglect  so  great  a  salvation,  or  lose 
iny  hold  of  an  atonement,  made  sure  by  Him 
who  cried  that  it  was  finished,  and  brought 
in  an  everlasting  righteousness.  It  was  not 
the  visit  of  an  empty  parade  that  he  made 
to  us.  It  was  for  the  accomplishment  of 
some  substantial  purpose ;  and  if  that  pur- 
pose is  announced,  and  stated  to  consist  in 
his  dying,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  he 
might  bring  us  unto  G-od,  let  us  never  doubt 
of  our  acceptance  in  that  way  of  communi- 
cation with  our  Father  in  heaven,  which  he 


112  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

hath  opened  and  made  known  to  us.  In 
taking  to  that  way,  let  us  follow  his  eveiy 
direction  with  that  humility  which  a  sense 
of  all  this  wonderful  condescension  is  fitted 
to  inspire.  Let  us  forsake  all  that  he  hids 
us  forsake.  Let  us  do  all  that  he  bids  us 
do.  Let  us  give  ourselves  up  to  his  guid- 
ance with  the  docility  of  children,  overpow- 
ered by  a  kindness  that  we  never  merited, 
and  a  love  that  is  unequalled  by  all  the 
perverseness  and  all  the  ingratitude  of  our 
stubborn  nature;  for  what  shall  we  render 
unto  him  for  such  mysterious  benefits — to 
him  who  has  thus  been  mindful  of  us — to 
him  who  thus  has  deigned  to  visit  us  ? 

But  the  whole  of  this  argument  is  not 
yet  exhausted.  We  have  scarcely  entered  on 
the  defence  that  is  commonly  made  against 
the  plea  which  infidelity  rests  on  the  won- 
derful extent  of  the  universe  of  God,  and 
the  insignificancy  of  our  assigned  portion  of 
it.  The  way  in  which  we  have  attempted 
to  dispose  of  this  plea,  is  by  insisting  on  the 
evidence  that  is  everywhere  around  us,  of 
God  combining  with  the  largeness  of  a  vast 
and  might  superintendence,  which  reaches 
the  outskirts  of  creation  and  spreads  over 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  113 

all  its  amplitudes,  the  faculty  of  bestowing 
as  much  attention,  and  exercising  as  com- 
plete and  manifold  a  wisdom,  and  lavish- 
ing as  profuse  and  inexhaustible  a  good- 
ness, on  each  of  its  humblest  departments, 
as  if  it  formed  the  whole  extent  of  his  ter- 
ritory. 

In  the  whole  of  this  argument,  we  have 
looked  upon  the  earth  as  isolated  from  the 
rest  of  the  universe  altogether.  But  accord- 
ing to  the  way  in  which  the  astronomical 
objection  is  commonly  met,  the  earth  is  not 
viewed  as  in  a  state  of  detachment  from  the 
other  worlds,  and  the  other  orders  of  being 
which  God  has  called  into  existence.  It  is 
looked  upon  as  a  member  of  a  more  ex- 
tended system.  It  is  associated  with  the 
magnificence  of  a  moral  empire  as  wide  as 
the  kingdom  of  nature.  It  is  not  merely 
asserted,  what  in  our  last  discourse  has  been 
already  done,  that  for  any  thing  we  can 
know  by  reason,  the  plan  of  redemption  may 
have  its  influences  and  its  bearings  on  those 
creatures  of  G-od  who  people  other  regions, 
and  occupy  other  fields  in  the  immensity  of 
his  dominions;  that  to  argue,  therefore,  on 
this  plan  being  instituted  for  the  single 


114  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

benefit  of  the  world  we  live  in,  and  of  the 
species  to  which  we  belong,  is  a  mere  pre- 
sumption of  the  infidel  himself;  and  that 
the  objection  he  rears  on  it  must  fall  to  the 
ground,  when  the  vanity  of  the  presump- 
tion is  exposed.  The  Christian  apologist 
thinks  he  can  go  farther  than  this — that  he 
can  not  merely  expose  the  utter  baseless- 
ness of  the  infidel  assertion,  but  that  he  has 
positive  ground  for  erecting  an  opposite  and 
a  confronting  assertion  in  its  place ;  and 
that  after  having  neutralized  their  position, 
by  showing  the  entire  absence  of  all  obser- 
vation in  its  behalf,  he  can  pass  on  to  the 
distinct  and  affirmative  testimony  of  the 
Bible. 

We  do  think  that  this  lays  open  a  very 
interesting  track,  not  of  wild  and  fanciful, 
but  of  most  legitimate  and  sober-minded 
speculation.  And  anxious  as  we  are  to  put 
every  thing  that  bears  upon  the  Christian 
argument  into  all  its  lights ;  and  fearless  as 
we  feel  for  the  result  of  a  most  thorough 
sifting  of  it;  and  thinking  as  we  do  think 
it,  the  foulest  scorn  that  any  pigmy  philos- 
opher *>f  the  day  should  mince  his  ambig- 
uous scepticism  to  a  set  of  giddy  and  igno- 


THE   DIVINE   CONDESCENSION.  115 

rant  admirers,  or  that  a  half-learned  and 
superficial  public  should  associate  with  the 
Christian  priesthood  the  blindness  and  big- 
otry of  a  sinking  cause :  with  these  feelings, 
we  are  not  disposed  to  blink  a  single  ques- 
tion that  may  be  started  on  the  subject  of 
the  Christian  evidences.  There  is  not  one 
of  its  parts  or  bearings  which  needs  the 
shelter  of  a  disguise  thrown  over  it.  Let 
the  priests  of  another  faith  ply  Their  pru- 
dential expedients,  and  look  so  wise  and  so 
wary  in  the  execution  of  them ;  but  Chris- 
tianity stands  in  a  higher  and  a  firmer  atti- 
tude. The  defensive  armor  of  a  shrinking 
or  timid  policy  does  not  suit  her.  Hers  is 
the  naked  majesty  of  truth;  and  with  all 
the  grandeur  of  age,  but  with  none  of  its 
infirmities,  has  she  come  down  to  us,  and 
gathered  new  strength  from  the  battles  she 
has  won  in  the  many  controversies  of  many 
generations.  With  such  a  religion  as  this 
there  is  nothing  to  hide.  All  should  be 
above-board.  And  the  broadest  light  of  day 
should  be  made  fully  and  freely  to  circulate 
throughout  all  her  secrecies.  But  secrets 
she  has  none.  To  her  belong  the  frankness 
and  the  simplicity  of  conscious  greatness,  and 


116  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

whether  she  grapple  with  the  pride  of  phi- 
losophy, or  stand  in  fronted  opposition  to  the 
prejudices  of  the  multitude,  she  does  it  upon 
her  own  strength,  and  spurns  all  the  props 
and  all  the  auxiliaries  of  superstition  away 
from  her. 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  117 


DISCOURSE    IV. 

ON  THE   KNOWLEDGE   OF   MAN'S  MORAL  HISTORY 
IN  THE  DISTANT  PLACES  OF  CREATION. 

"  Which  things  the  angels  desire  to  look  into."    1  Pet.  1 : 12. 

THERE  is  a  limit  across  which  man  can- 
not carry  any  one  of  his  perceptions,  and 
from  the  ulterior  of  which  he  cannot  gather 
a  single  observation  to  guide  or  to  inform 
him.  While  he  keeps  hy  the  objects  which 
are  near,  he  can  get  the  knowledge  of  them 
conveyed  to  his  mind  through  the  ministry 
of  several  of  the  senses.  He  can  feel  a  sub- 
stance that  is  within  reach  of  his  hand.  He 
can  smell  a  flower  that  is  presented  to  him. 
He  can  taste  the  food  that  is  before  him.  He 
can  hear  a  sound  of  certain  pitch  and  inten- 
sity ;  and  so  much  does  this  sense  of  hearing 
widen  his  intercourse  with  external  nature, 
that  from  the  distance  of  miles  it  can  bring 
him  in  an  occasional  intimation. 

But  of  all  the  tracks  of  conveyance  which 
God  has  been  pleased  to  open  up  between 


118  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

the  mind  of  man  and  the  theatre  hy  which 
he  is  surrounded,  there  is  none  by  which  he 
so  multiplies  his  acquaintance  with  the  rich 
and  the  varied  creation  on  every  side  of  him, 
as  by  the  organ  of  the  eye.  It  is  this  which 
gives  to  man  his  loftiest  command  over  the 
scenery  of  nature.  It  is  this  by  which  so 
broad  a  range  of  observation  is  submitted  to 
him.  It  is  this  which  enables  him,  by  the 
act  of  a  single  moment,  to  send  an  exploring 
look  over  the  surface  of  an  ample  territory, 
to  crowd  his  mind  with  the  whole  assembly 
of  its  objects,  and  to  fill  his  vision  with  those 
countless  hues  which  diversify  and  adorn  it. 
It  is  this  which  carries  him  abroad  over  all 
that  is  sublime  in  the  immensity  of  distance, 
which  sets  him  as  it  were  on  an  elevated  plat- 
form, from  whence  he  may  cast  a  surveying 
glance  over  the  arena  of  innumerable  worlds ; 
which  spreads  before  him  so  mighty  a  prov- 
ince of  contemplation,  that  the  earth  he 
inhabits  only  appears  to  furnish  him  with 
the  pedestal  on  which  he  may  stand,  and 
from  which  he  may  descry  the  wonders  of  all 
that  magnificence  which  the  Divinity  has 
poured  so  abundantly  around  him.  It  is  by 
the  narrow  outlet  of  the  eye,  that  the  mind 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  119 

of  man  takes  its  excursive  flight  over  those 
golden  tracks  where,  in  all  the  exhaustless- 
ness  of  creative  wealth,  lie  scattered  the  suns 
and  the  systems  of  astronomy.  But  0,  how 
good  a  thing  it  is,  and  how  becoming  well,  for 
the  philosopher  to  be  humble  even  amid  the 
proudest  inarch  of  human  discovery,  and  the 
sublimest  triumphs  of  the  human  understand- 
ing, when  he  thinks  of  that  unsealed  barrier, 
beyond  which  no  power,  either  of  eye  or  of 
telescope,  shall  ever  carry  him;  when  he 
thinks  that  on  the  other  side  of  it  there  is  a 
height  and  a  dep£h  and  a  length  and  a 
breadth  to  which  the  whole  of  this  concave 
and  visible  firmament  dwindles  into  the  insig- 
nificancy of  an  atom;  and  above  all,  how 
ready  should  he  be  to  cast  his  every  lofty 
imagination  away  from  him,  when  he  thinks 
of  the  God  who,  on  the  simple  foundation  of 
his  word,  has  reared  the  whole  of  this  stately 
architecture,  and  by  the  force  of  his  preserv- 
ing hand  continues  to  uphold  it;  aye,  and 
should  the  word  again  corne  out  from  him, 
that  this  earth  shall  pass  away,  and  a  por- 
tion of  the  heavens  which  are  around  it  shall 
again  fall  back  into  the  annihilation  from 
which  he  at  first  summoned  them,  what  an 


120  ASTRONOMICAL    DISCOURSES. 

impressive  rebuke  does  it  bring  on  the  swell- 
ing vanity  of  science,  to  think  that  the  whole 
field  of  its  most  ambitious  enterprises  may 
be  swept  away  altogether,  and  there  remain 
before  the  eye  of  Him  who  sitteth  on  the 
throne,  an  untravelled  immensity,  which  he 
hath  filled  with  innumerable  splendors,  and 
over  the  whole  face  of  which  he  hath  in- 
scribed the  evidence  of  his  high  attributes, 
in  all  their  might,  and  in  all  their  manifes- 
tation. 

But  man  has  a  great  deal  more  to  keep 
him  humble  of  his  understanding,  than  a 
mere  sense  of  that  boundary  which  skirts 
and  which  terminates  the  material  field  of 
his  contemplations.  He  ought  also  to  feel, 
how  within  that  boundary  the  vast  majority 
of  things  is  mysterious  and  unknown  to  him ; 
that  even  in  the  inner  chamber  of  his  own 
consciousness,  where  so  much  lies  hidden 
from  the  observation  of  others,  there  is  also 
to  himself  a  little  world  of  incomprehensibles ; 
that  if  stepping  beyond  the  limits  of  this 
familiar  home,  he  look  no  farther  than  to  the 
members  of  his  family,  there  is  much  in  the 
cast  and  the  color  of  every  mind  that  is  above 
his  powers  of  divination;  that  in  proportion 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  121 

as  he  recedes  from  the  centre  of  his  own  per- 
sonal experience,  there  is  a  cloud  of  igno- 
rance and  secrecy,  which  spreads  and  thick- 
ens and  throws  a  deep  and  impenetrable  veil 
over  the  intricacies  of  every  one  department 
of  human  contemplation;  that  of  all  around 
him,  his  knowledge  is  naked  and  superficial, 
and  confined  to  a  few  of  those  more  conspic- 
uous lineaments  which  strike  upon  his  senses ; 
that  the  whole  face,  hoth  of  nature  and  of 
society,  presents  him  with  questions  which 
he  cannot  unriddle,  and  tells  him  how,  be- 
neath the  surface  of  all  that  the  eye  can  rest 
upon,  there  lies  the  profoundness  of  a  most 
unsearchable  latency ;  aye,  and  should  he,  in 
some  lofty  enterprise  of  thought,  leave  this 
world  and  shoot  afar  into  those  tracks  of 
speculation  which  astronomy  has  opened — 
should  he,  baffled  by  the  mysteries  which 
beset  his  every  footstep  upon  earth,  attempt 
an  ambitious  flight  towards  the  mysteries  of 
heaven,  let  him  go,  but  let  the  justness  of  a 
pious  and  philosophical  modesty  go  along 
with  him;  let  him  forget  not,  that  from  the 
moment  his  mind  has  taken  its  ascending 
way  for  a  few  little  miles  above  the  world  he 
treads  upon,  his  every  sense  abandons  him 


122  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

but  one — that  number  and  motion  and  mag- 
nitude and  figure  make  up  all  tbe  bareness 
of  its  elementary  informations — that  these 
orbs  have  sent  him  scarce  another  message 
than,  told  by  their  feeble  glimmering  upon 
his  eye,  the  simple  fact  of  their  existence — 
that  he  sees  not  the  landscape  of  other 
worlds,  that  he  knows  not  the  moral  system 
of  any  one  of  them,  nor  athwart  the  long 
and  trackless  vacancy  which  lies  between, 
does  there  fall  upon  his  listening  ear  the  hum 
of  their  mighty  populations. 

But  the  knowledge  which  he  cannot  fetch 
up  himself  from  the  obscurity  of  this  won- 
drous but  untravelled  scene,  by  the  exercise 
of  any  one  of  his  own  senses,  might  be  fetched 
to  him  by  the  testimony  of  a  competent  mes- 
senger. Conceive  a  native  of  one  of  these 
planetary  mansions  to  light  upon  our  world, 
and  all  we  should  require  would  be,  to  be 
satisfied  of  his  credentials,  that  we  may  tack 
our  faith  to  every  point  of  information  he 
had  to  offer  us.  With  the  solitary  exception 
of  what  we  have  been  enabled  to  gather  by 
the  instruments  of  astronomy,  there  is  not 
one  of  his  communications  about  the  place 
he  came  from,  on  which  we  possess  any 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  123 

means  at  all  of  confronting  him;  and  there- 
fore, could  he  only  appear  hefore  us  invested 
with  the  characters  of  truth,  we  should  never 
think  of  any  thing  else  than  taking  up  the 
whole  matter  of  his  testimony  just  as  he 
"brought  it  to  us. 

It  were  well  had  a  sound  philosophy 
schooled  its  professing  disciples  to  the  same 
kind  of  acquiescence  in  another  message, 
which  has  actually  come  to  the  world,  and 
has  told  us  of  matters  still  more  remote  from 
every  power  of  unaided  ohservation,  and  has 
been  sent  from  a  more  sublime  and  myste- 
rious distance,  even  from  that  God  of  whom 
it  is  said,  that  "  clouds  and  darkness  are  the 
habitation  of  his  throne;"  and  treating  of  a 
theme  so  lofty  and  so  inaccessible  as  the 
councils  of  that  eternal  Spirit  "  whose  goings 
forth  are  of  old,  even  from  everlasting,"  chal- 
lenges of  man  that  he  should  submit  his 
every  thought  to  the  authority  of  this  high 
communication.  0,  had  the  philosophers  of 
the  day  known  as  well  as  their  great  master, 
how  to  draw  the  vigorous  landmark  which 
verges  the  field  of  legitimate  discovery,  they 
should  have  seen  when  it  is  that  philosophy 
becomes  vain,  and  science  is  falsely  so  called ; 


124  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

and  how  it  is,  that  when  philosophy  is  true 
to  her  principles,  she  shuts  up  her  faithful 
votary  to  the  Bible,  and  makes  him  willing 
to  count  all  but  loss,  for  the  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified. 

But  let  it  be  well  observed,  that  the  object 
of  this  message  is  not  to  convey  information 
to  us  about  the  state  of  these  planetary 
regions.  This  is  not  the  matter  with  which 
it  is  fraught.  It  is  a  message  from  the  throne 
of  Grod  to  this  rebellious  province  of  his 
dominions ;  and  the  purpose  of  it  is,  to  reveal 
the  fearful  extent  of  our  guilt  and  of  our 
danger,  and  to  lay  before  us  the  overtures  of 
reconciliation.  Were  a  similar  message  sent 
from  the  metropolis  of  a  mighty  empire  to 
one  of  its  remote  and  revolutionary  districts, 
we  should  not  look  to  it  for  much  information 
about  the  state  or  economy  of  the  interme- 
diate provinces.  This  were  a  departure  from 
the  topic  on  hand,  though  still  there  may 
chance  to  be  some  incidental  allusions  to  the 
extent  and  resources  of  the  whole  monarchy, 
to  the  existence  of  a  similar  spirit  of  rebellion 
in  other  quarters  of  the  land,  or  to  the  gen- 
eral principle  of  loyalty  by  which  it  was  per- 
vaded. Some  casual  references  of  this  kind 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  125 

may  be  inserted  in  such  a  proclamation,  or 
they  may  not;  and  it  is  with  this  precise 
feeling  of  ambiguity  that  we  open  the  record 
of  that  embassy  which  has  been  sent  us  from 
heaven,  to  see  if  we  can  gather  any  thing 
there,  about  other  places  of  the  creation,  to 
meet  the  objections  of  the  infidel  astronomer. 
But  while  we  pursue  this  object,  let  us  have 
a  care  not  to  push  the  speculation  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  written  testimony;  let  us 
keep  a  just  and  a  steady  eye  on  the  actual 
boundary  of  our  knowledge,  that  throughout 
every  distinct  step  of  our  argument  we  might 
preserve  that  chaste  and  unambitious  spirit 
which  characterizes  the  philosophy  of  him 
who  explored  these  distant  heavens,  and  by 
the  force  of  his  genius  unravelled  the  secret 
of  that  wondrous  mechanism  which  upholds 
them. 

The  informations  of  the  Bible  upon  this 
subject  are  of  two  sorts:  that  from  which  we 
confidently  gather  the  fact,  that  the  history  of 
the  redemption  of  our  species  is  known  in 
other  and  distant  places  of  the  creation ;  and 
that  from  which  we  indistinctly  guess  at  the 
fact,  that  the  redemption  itself  may  stretch 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  world  we  occupy. 


126  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

And  here  it  may  shortly  be  adverted  to, 
that  though  we  know  little  or  nothing  of  the 
moral  and  theological  economy  of  the  other 
planets,  we  are  not  to  infer  that  the  beings 
who  occupy  these  widely  extended  regions, 
even  though  not  higher  than  we  in  the  scale 
of  understanding,  know  little  of  ours.  Our 
first  parents,  ere  they  committed  that  act  by 
which  they  brought  themselves  and,  their 
posterity  into  the  need  of  redemption,  had 
frequent  and  familiar  intercourse  with  God. 
He  walked  with  them  in  the  garden  of  para- 
dise,  and  there  did  angels  hold  their  habitual 
converse ;  and  should  the  same  unblotted 
innocence  which  charmed  and  attracted  these 
superior  beings  to  the  haunts  of  Eden,  be 
perpetuated  in  every  planet  but  our  own, 
then  might  each  of  them  be  the  scene  of 
high  and  heavenly  communications,  and  an 
open  way  for  the  messengers  of  God  be  kept 
up  with  them  all,  and  their  inhabitants  be 
admitted  to  a  share  in  the  themes  and  con- 
templations of  angels,  and  have  their  spirits 
exercised  on  those  things,  of  which  we  are 
told  that  the  angels  desired  to  look  into  them ; 
and  thus,  as  we  talk  of  the  public  mind  of  a 
city,  or  the  public  mind  of  an  empire,  by  the 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  127 

well-frequented  avenues  of  a  free  and  ready 
circulation,  a  public  mind  might  be  formed 
throughout  the  whole  extent  of  God's  sinless 
and  intelligent  creation ;  and  just  as  we  often 
read  of  the  eyes  of  all  Europe  being  turned 
to  the  one  spot  where  some  affair  of  eventful 
importance  is  going  on,  there  might  be  the 
eyes  of  a  whole  universe  turned  to  the  one 
world  where  rebellion  against  the  Majesty  of 
heaven  had  planted  its  standard ;  and  for  the 
readmission  of  which  within  the  circle  of  his 
fellowship,  God,  whose  justice  was  inflexible, 
but  whose  mercy  he  had,  by  some  plan  of 
mysterious  wisdom,  made  to  rejoice  over  it, 
was  putting  forth  all  the  might,  and  travail- 
ing in  all  the  greatness  of  the  attributes  which 
belonged  to  him. 

But  for  the  full  understanding  of  this 
argument  it  must  be  remarked,  that  while 
in  our  exiled  habitation,  where  all  is  darkness 
and  rebellion  and  enmity,  the  creature  en- 
grosses every  heart — and  our  affections,  when 
they  shift  at  all,  only  wander  from  one  fleet- 
ing vanity  to  another — it  is  not  so  in  the 
habitations  of  the  unfallen.  There  every 
desire  and  every  movement  is  subordinated 
to  God.  He  is  seen  in  all  that  is  formed, 


128  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

and  in  all  that  is  spread  around  them ;  and 
amid  the  fulness  of  that  delight  with  which 
they  expatiate  over  the  good  and  the  fair  of 
this  wondrous  universe,  the  animating  charm 
which  pervades  their  every  contemplation  is, 
that  they  behold,  on  each  visible  thing,  the 
impress  of  the  mind  that  conceived,  and  of 
the  hand  that  made  and  that  upholds  it. 
Here  God  is  banished  from  the  thoughts  of 
every  natural  man,  and  by  a  firm  and  con- 
stantly maintained  act  of  usurpation,  do  the 
things  of  sense  and  of  time  wield  an  entire 
ascendency.  There,  God  is  all  in  all.  They 
walk  in  his  light.  They  rejoice  in  the  beati- 
tudes of  his  presence.  The  veil  is  from  off 
their  eyes,  and  they  see  the  character  of 
a  presiding  Divinity  in  every  scene,  and 
every  event  to  which  the  Divinity  has  given 
birth.  It  is  this  which  stamps  a  glory  and 
an  importance  on  the  whole  field  of  their 
contemplations;  and  when  they  see  a  new 
evolution  in  the  history  of  created  things, 
the  reason  they  bend  towards  it  so  attentive 
an  eye  is,  that  it  speaks  to  their  under- 
standing some  new  evolution  in  the  purposes 
of  God  —  some  new  manifestation  of  his 
high  attributes  —  some  new  and  interesting 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  129 

step  iii  the  history  of  his  sublime  adminis- 
tration. 

Now,  we  ought  to  be  aware  how  it  takes 
off,  not  from  the  intrinsic  weight,  but  from 
the  actual  impression  of  our  argument,  that 
this  devotedness  to  G-od  which  reigns  in  other 
places  of  the  creation,  this  interest  in  him  as 
the  constant  and  essential  principle  of  all 
enjoyment,  this  concern  in  the  untaintedness 
of  his  glory,  this  delight  in  the  survey  of  his 
perfections  and  his  doings,  are  what  the  men 
of  our  corrupt  and  darkened  world  cannot 
sympathize  with. 

But  however  little  we  may  enter  into  it, 
the  Bible  tells  us  by  many  intimations,  that 
among  those  creatures  who  have  not  fallen 
from  their  allegiance,  nor  departed  from  the 
living  God,  G-od  is  their  all ;  that  love  to 
him  sits  enthroned  in  their  hearts,  and  fills 
them  with  all  the  ecstasy  of  an  overwhelm- 
ing affection ;  that  a  sense  of  grandeur  never 
so  elevates  their  souls  as  when  they  look  at 
the  might  and  majesty  of  the  Eternal ;  that 
no  field- of  cloudless  transparency  so  enchants 
them  by  the  blissfulness  of  its  visions,  as 
when  at  the  shrine  of  infinite  and  unspotted 
holiness,  they  bend  themselves  in  raptured 


130  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOUESES. 

adoration ;  that  no  beauty  so  fascinates  and 
attracts  them,  as  does  that  moral  beauty 
which  throws  a  softening  lustre  over  the 
awfulness  of  the  Godhead:  in  a  word,  that 
the  image  of  his  character  is  ever  present 
to  their  contemplations,  and  the  unceasing 
joy  of  their  sinless  existence  lies  in  the 
knowledge  and  the  admiration  of  the  Deity. 

Let  us  put  forth  an  effort,  and  keep  a 
steady  hold  of  this  consideration — for  the 
deadness  of  our  earthly  imaginations  makes 
an  effort  necessary — and  we  shall  perceive, 
that  though  the  world  we  live  in  were  the 
alone  theatre  of  redemption,  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  redemption  itself  that  is  fitted 
to  draw  the  eye  of  an  arrested  universe 
towards  it.  Surely,  surely,  where  delight  in 
God  is  the  constant  enjoyment,  and  the 
earnest,  intelligent  contemplation  of  God  is 
the  constant  exercise,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
whole  compass  of  nature,  or  of  history,  that 
can  so  set  his  adoring  myriads  upon  the 
gaze,  as  some  new  and  wondrous  evolution 
of  the  character  of  God.  Now  this  is  found 
in  the  plan  of  our  redemption;  nor  do  I 
see  how,  in  any  transaction  between  the 
great  Father  of  existence,  and  the  children 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  131 

who  have  sprung  from  him,  the  moral  attri- 
butes of  the  Deity  could,  if  I  may  so 
express  myself,  be  put  to  so  severe  and  so 
delicate  a  test.  It  is  true,  that  the  great 
matters  of  sin  and  of  salvation  fall  without 
impression  on  the  heavy  ears  of  a  listless 
and  alienated  world.  But  they  who,  to  use 
the  language  of  the  Bible,  are  light  in  the 
Lord,  look  otherwise  at  these  things.  They 
see  sin  in  all  its  malignity,  and  salvation 
in  all  its  mysterious  greatness.  Aye,  and  it 
would  put  them  on  the  stretch  of  all  their 
faculties,  when  they  saw  rebellion  lifting  up 
its  standard  against  the  JAajesty  of  heaven, 
and  the  truth  and  the  jraBce  of  Grod  em- 
barked on  the  threatenings  he  had  uttered 
against  all  the  doers  of  iniquity,  and  the 
honors  of  that  august  throne  which  has  the 
firm  pillars  of  immutability  to  rest  upon, 
linked  with  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  that 
had  come  out  from  it;  and  when  nothing 
else  was  looked  for,  but  that  God,  by  put- 
ting forth  the  power  of  his  wrath,  should 
accomplish  his  every  denunciation,  and  vin- 
dicate the  inflexibility  of  his  government, 
and  by  one  sweeping  deed  of  vengeance 
assert,  in  the  sight  of  all  his  creatures,  the 


132  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

sovereignty  which  belonged  to  him.  0,  with 
what  desire  must  they  have  pondered  on  his 
ways,  when  amid  the  urgency  of  all  these 
demands  which  looked  so  high  and  so  indis- 
pensable, they  saw  the  unfoldings  of  the 
attribute  of  mercy;  and  how  the  supreme 
Lawgiver  was  bending  upon  his  guilty  crea- 
tures an  eye  of  tenderness ;  and  how,  in  his 
profound  and  unsearchable  wisdom,  he  was 
devising  for  them  some  plan  of  restoration ; 
and  how  the  eternal  Son  had  to  move  from 
his  dwelling-place  in  heaven  to  carry  it 
forward,  though  among  all  the  difficulties 
by  which  it  wj^encompassed ;  and  how 
after,  by  the  virnre  of  his  mysterious  sacri- 
fice, he  had  magnified  the  glory  of  every 
other  perfection,  he  made  mercy  rejoice  over 
them  all,  and  threw  open  a  way  by  which 
we  sinful  and  polluted  wanderers  might, 
with  the  whole  lustre  of  the  divine  char- 
acter untarnished,  be  readmitted  into  fellow- 
ship with  God,  and  be  again  brought  back 
within  the  circle  of  his  loyal  and  affectionate 
family. 

Now,  the  essential  character  of  such  a 
transaction,  viewed  as  a  manifestation  of 
God,  does  not  hang  upon  the  number  of 


ANGELS1  KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  133 

» 

worlds  over  which  this  sin  and  this  salva- 
tion may  have  extended.  We  know  that 
over  this  one  world  such  an  economy  of  wis- 
dom and  of  mercy  is  instituted ;  and  even 
should  this  be  the  only  world  that  is  em- 
braced by  it,  the  moral  display  of  the  God- 
head  is  mainly  and  substantially  the  same 
as  if  it  reached  throughout  the  whole  of 
that  habitable  extent  which  the  science  of 
astronomy  has  made  known  to  us.  By  the 
disobedience  of  this  one  world,  the  law  was 
trampled  on ;  and  in  the  business  of  making 
truth  and  mercy  to  meet,  and  have  a  har- 
monious accomplishment  on  the  men  of  this 
world,  the  dignity  of  God  was  put  to  the 
same  trial — the  justice  of  God  appeared  to 
lay  the  same  immovable  barrier — the  wis- 
dom of  God  had  to  clear  a  way  through  the 
same  difficulties — the  forgiveness  of  God  had 
to  find  the  same  mysterious  conveyance  to 
the  sinners  of  a  solitary  world,  as  to  the 
sinners  of  half  a  universe.  The  extent  of 
the  field  upon  which  this  question  was  de- 
cided, has  no  more  influence  on  the  question 
itself,  than  the  figure  or  the  dimensions  of 
that  field  of  combat  on  which  some  great 
political  question  was  fought,  has  on  the 


134  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOUESES. 

importance  or  on  the  moral  principles  of  the 
controversy  that  gave  rise  to  it.  This  objec- 
tion ahout  the  narrowness  of  the  theatre  car- 
ries along  with  it  all  the  grossness  of  mate- 
rialism. To  the  eye  of  spiritual  and  intel- 
ligent beings,  it  is  nothing.  In  their  view, 
the  redemption  of  a  sinful  world  derives  its 
chief  interest  from  the  display  it  gives  of 
the  mind  and  purposes  of  the  Deity;  and 
should  that  world  be  but  a  single  speck  in 
the  immensity  of  the  works  of  God,  the 
only  way  in  which  this  affects  their  esti- 
mate of  him  is  to  magnify  his  loving-kind- 
ness ;  who,  rather  than  lose  one  solitary 
world  of  the  myriads  he  has  formed,  would 
lavish  all  the  riches  of  his  beneficence  and 
of  his  wisdom  on  the  recovery  of  its  guilty 
population. 

Now,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  Bible  does  not  speak  clearly  or  deci- 
sively as  to  the  proper  effect  of  redemption 
being  extended  to  other  worlds,  it  speaks 
most  clearly  and  most  decisively  about  the 
knowledge  of  it  being  disseminated  among 
other  orders  of  created  intelligence  than  our 
own.  But  if  the  contemplation  of  God  be 
their  supreme  enjoyment,  then  the  very  cir- 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  135 

cumstance  of  our  redemption  being  known 
to  them  may  invest  it,  even  though  it  be 
but  the  redemption  of  one  solitary  world, 
with  an  importance  as  wide  as  the  uni- 
verse itself.  It  may  spread  among  the  hosts 
of  immensity  a  new  illustration  of  the  char- 
acter of  Him  who  is  all  their  praise,  and  in 
looking  towards  whom  every  energy  within 
them  is  moved  to  the  exercise  of  a  deep 
and  delighted  admiration.  The  scene  of  the 
transaction  may  be  narrow  in  point  of  ma- 
terial extent,  while  in  the  transaction  itself 
there  may  be  such  a  moral  dignity,  as  to 
blazon  the  perfections  of  the  Grodhead  over 
the  face  of  creation,  and  from  the  manifested 
glory  of  the  Eternal,  to  send  forth  a  tide 
of  ecstasy,  and  of  high  gratulation,  through- 
out the  whole  extent  of  his  dependent  prov- 
inces. 

I  will  not,  in  proof  of  the  position  that 
the  history  of  our  redemption  is  known  in 
other  and  distant  places  of  creation,  and  is 
matter  of  deep  interest  and  feeling  among 
other  orders  of  created  intelligence — I  will 
not  put  down  all  the  quotations  which  might 
be  assembled  together  upon  this  argument. 
It  is  an  impressive  circumstance,  that  when 


136  ASTEONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

Moses  and  Elias  made  a  visit  to  our  Sav- 
iour on  the  mount  of  transfiguration,  and 
appeared  in  glory  from  heaven,  the  topic 
they  brought  along  with  them,  and  with 
which  they  were  fraught,  was  the  decease 
he  was  going  to  accomplish  at  Jerusalem. 
And  however  insipid  the  things  of  our  sal- 
vation may  be  to  an  earthly  understanding, 
we  are  made  to  know,  that  in  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ,  and  the  glory  which  should 
follow,  there  is  matter  to  attract  the  notice 
of  celestial  spirits,  for  these  are  the  very 
things,  says  the  Bible,  which  angels  desire 
to  look  into.  And  however  listlessly  we, 
the  dull  and  grovelling  children  of  an  ex- 
iled family,  may  feel  about  the  perfections 
of  the  Godhead,  and  the  display  of  those 
perfections  in  the  economy  of  the  gospel,  it 
is  intimated  to  us  in  the  book  of  God's 
message,  that  the  creation  has  its  districts 
and  its  provinces  ;  and  we  accordingly  read 
of  thrones  and  dominions  and  principalities 
and  powers ;  and  whether  these  terms  denote 
the  separate  regions  of  government,  or  the 
beings  who,  by  a  commission  granted  from 
the  sanctuary  of  heaven,  sit  in  delegated 
authority  over  them,  even  in  their  eyes  the 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  137 

mystery  of  Christ  stands  arrayed  in  all  the 
splendor  of  unsearchable  riches ;  for  we  are 
told  that  this  mystery  was  revealed  for  the 
very  intent,  that  unto  the  principalities  and 
powers  in  heavenly  places,  might  be  made 
known  by  the  church  the  manifold  wisdom 
of  God.  And  while  we,  whose  prospect 
reaches  not  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
corner  we  occupy,  look  on  the  dealings  of 
God  in  the  world  as  carrying  in  them  all 
the  insignificance  of  a  provincial  transaction, 
God  himself,  whose  eye  reaches  to  places 
which  our  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  our  ear 
heard  of,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the 
imagination  of  our  heart  to  conceive,  stamps 
a  universality  on  the  whole  matter  of  the 
Christian  salvation  by  such  revelations  as 
the  following:  That  he  is  to  gather  together 
in  one  all  things  in  Christ,  both  which  are 
in  heaven,  and  which  are  in  earth,  even  in 
him;  and  that  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every 
knee  shall  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and 
things  in  earth,  and  things  under  the  earth ; 
and  that  by  him  God  reconciled  all  things 
unto  himself,  whether  they  be  things  in  earth, 
or  things  in  heaven. 

We   will   not   say   in   how   far   some   of 


Io8  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

these  passages  extend  the  proper  effect  of 
that  redemption  which  is  by  Christ  Jesus, 
to  other  quarters  of  the  universe  of  God  ; 
but  they  at  least  go  to  establish  a  widely 
disseminated  knowledge  of  this  transaction 
among  the  other  orders  of  created  intelli- 
gence. And  they  give  us  a  distant  glimpse 
of  something  more  extended.  They  present 
a  faint  opening,  through  which  may  be  seen 
some  few  traces  of  a  wider  and  a  nobler 
dispensation.  They  bring  before  us  a  dim 
transparency,  on  the  other  side  of  which  the 
images  of  an  obscure  magnificence  dazzle 
indistinctly  upon  the  eye,  and  tell  us,  that 
in  the  economy  of  redemption  there  is  a 
grandeur  commensurate  to  all  that  is  known 
of  the  other  works  and  purposes  of  the 
Eternal.  They  offer  us  no  details,  and  man, 
who  ought  not  to  attempt  a  wisdom  above 
;hat  which  is  written,  should  never,  never 
put  forth  his  hand  to  the  drapery  of  that 
impenetrable  curtain  which  God,  in  his  mys- 
terious wisdom,  has  spread  over  those  ways, 
of  which  it  is  but  a  very  small  portion 
that  we  know  of  them.  But  certain  it  is, 
that  we  know  as  much  of  them  from  the 
Bible;  and  the  infidel,  with  all  the  pride 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  139 

of  his  boasted  astronomy,  knows  so  little  of 
them  from  any  power  of  observation,  that  the 
baseless  argument  of  his  on  which  we  have 
dwelt  so  long,  is  overborne  in  the  light  of 
all  that  positive  evidence  which  G-od  has 
poured  around  the  record  of  his  own  testi- 
mony, and  even  in  the  light  of  its  more 
obscure  and  casual  intimations. 

The  minute  and  variegated  details  of  the 
way  in  which  this  wondrous  economy  is 
extended,  God  has  chosen  to  withhold  from 
us ;  but  he  has  oftener  than  once  made  to 
us  a  broad  and  a  general  announcement  of 
its  dignity.  He  does  not  tell  us  whether 
the  fountain  opened  in  the  house  of  Judah 
for  sin  and  for  uncleanness,  sends  forth  its 
healing  streams  to  other  worlds  than  our 
own.  He  does  not  tell  us  the  extent  of  the 
atonement;  but  he  tells  us  that  the  atone- 
ment itself,  known  as  it  is  among  the  myr-^ 
iads  of  the  celestial,  forms  the  high  song 
of  eternity — that  the  Lamb  who  was  slain 
is  surrounded  by  the  acclamations  of  one 
wide  and  universal  empire — that  the  might 
of  his  wondrous  achievements  spreads  a  tide 
of  gratulation  over  the  multitudes  who  are 
about  his  throne ;  and  there  never  ceases  to 


140      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ascend  from  the  worshippers  of  Him  who 
washed  us  from  our  sins  in  his  blood,  a  voice 
loud  as  from  numbers  without  number,  sweet 
as  from  blessed  voices  uttering  joy,  when 
heaven  rings  jubilee,  and  loud  hosannas  fill 
the  eternal  regions.  • 

"And  I  beheld,  and  I  heard  the  voice 
of  many  angels  round  about  the  throne ;  and 
the  number  of  them  was  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand,  and  thousands  of  thousands : 
saying  with  a  loud  voice,  Worthy  is  the 
Lamb  that  was  slain  to  receive  power,  and 
riches,  and  wisdom,  and  strength,  and  glory, 
and  honor,  and  blessing.  And  every  crea- 
ture which  is  in  heaven,  and  on  the  earth, 
and  under  the  earth,  and  such  as  are  in 
the  sea,  and  all  that  are  in  them,  heard  I 
saying,  Blessing,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and 
power,  be  unto  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the 
throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb,  for  ever  and 
ever." 

A  king  might  have  the  whole  of  his 
reign  crowded  with  the  enterprises  of  glory; 
and  by  the  might  of  his  arms,  and  the 
wisdom  of  his  counsels,  might  win  the  first 
reputation  among  the  "potentates  of  the  world ; 
and  be  idolized  throughout  all  his  prov- 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF   MAN.  141 

inces,  for  the  wealth  and  the  security  that  he 
had  spread  around  them — and  still  it  is  con- 
ceivable, that  hy  the  act  of  a  single  day 
in  behalf  of  a  single  family ;  by  some  sooth- 
ing visitation  of  tenderness  to  a  poor  and 
solitary  cottage ;  by  some  deed  of  compas- 
sion, which  conferred  enlargement  and  relief 
on  one  despairing  sufferer;  by  some  grace- 
ful movement  of  sensibility  at  a  tale  of 
wretchedness ;  by  some  noble  effort  of  self- 
denial,  in  virtue  of  which  he  subdued  his 
every  purpose  of  revenge,  and  spread  the 
mantle  of  a  generous  oblivion  over  the  fault 
of  a  man  who  had  insulted  and  aggrieved 
him  ;  above  all,  by  an  exercise  of  pardon 
so  skilfully  administered,  as  that  instead  of 
bringing  him  down  to  a  state  of  defence- 
lessness  against  the  provocation  of  future 
injuries,  it  threw  a  deeper  sacredness  over 
him,  and  stamped  a  more  inviolable  dignity 
than  ever  on  his  person  and  character — why, 
my  brethren,  on  the  strength  of  one  such 
performance,  done  in  a  single  hour,  and 
reaching  no  farther  in  its  immediate  effects 
than  to  one  house,  or  to  one  individual,  it 
is  a  most  possible  thing,  that  the  highest 
monarch  upon  earth  might  draw  such  a 


142  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

lustre  around  him  as  would  eclipse  the 
renown  of  all  his  public  achievements;  and 
that  such  a  display  of  magnanimity,  or  of 
worth,  beaming  from  the  secrecy  of  his 
familiar  moments,  might  waken  a  more  cor- 
dial veneration  in  every  bosom,  than  all  the 
splendor  of  his  conspicuous  history — aye,  and 
that  it  might  pass  down  to  posterity  as  a 
more  enduring  monument  of  greatness,  and 
raise  him  farther,  by  its  moral  elevation, 
above  the  level  of  ordinary  praise  ;  and  when 
he  passes  in  review  before  the  men  of  dis- 
tant ages,  may  this  deed  of  modest,  gentle, 
unobtrusive  virtue  be  at  all  times  appealed 
to,  as  the  most  sublime  and  touching  memo- 
rial of  his  name. 

In  like  manner  did  the  King  eternal, 
immortal,  and  invisible,  surrounded  as  he  is 
with  the  splendors  of  a  wide  and  everlast- 
ing monarchy,  turn  him  to  our  humble 
habitation;  and  the  footsteps  of  God  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh,  have  been  on  the  narrow 
spot  of  ground  we  occupy  ;  and  small  though 
our  mansion  be  amid  the  orbs  and  the  sys- 
tems of  immensity,  hither  hath  the  King  of 
glory  bent  his  mysterious  way,  and  entered 
the  tabernacle  of  men,  and  in  the  disguise 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  143 

of  a  servant  did  he  sojourn  for  years  under 
the  roof  which  canopies  our  obscure  and 
solitary  world.  Yes,  it  is  but  a  twinkling 
atom  in  the  peopled  infinity  of  worlds  that 
are  around  it ;  but  look  to  the  moral  gran- 
deur of  the  transaction,  and  not  to  the  ma- 
terial extent  of  the  field  upon  which  it  was 
executed,  and  from  the  retirement  of  our 
dwelling-place  there  may  issue  forth  such 
a  display  of  the  Godhead  as  will  circulate 
the  glories  of  his  name  among  all  his  wor- 
shippers. Here  sin  entered.  Here  was  the 
kind  and  universal  beneficence  of  a  Father 
repaid  by  the  ingratitude  of  a  whole  fam- 
ily. Here  the  law  of  G-od  was  dishonored, 
and  that  too  in  the  face  of  its  proclaimed 
and  unalterable  sanctions.  Here  the  mighty 
contest  of  the  attributes  was  ended ;  and 
when  justice  put  forth  its  demands,  and 
truth  called  for  the  fulfilment  of  its  warn- 
ings, and  the  immutability  of  God  would 
not  recede  by  a  single  iota  from  any  one  of 
its  positions,  and  all  the  severities  he  had 
ever  uttered  against  the  children  of  ini- 
quity seemed  to  gather  into  one  cloud  of 
threatening  vengeance  on  the  tenement  that 
held  us,  did  the  visit  of  the  only  begotten 


144  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

| 

Son  chase  away  all  these  obstacles  to  the 
triumph  of  mercy ;  and  humble  as  the  tene- 
ment may  be,  deeply  shaded  in  the  obscu- 
rity of  insignificance  as  it  is,  among  the 
statelier  mansions  which  are  on  every  side 
of  it ;  yet  will  the  recall  of  its  exiled  family 
never  be  forgotten,  and  the  illustration  that 
has  been  given  here  of  the  mingled  grace 
and  majesty  of  God,  will  never  lose  its  place 
among  the  themes  and  the  acclamations  of 
eternity. 

And  here  it  may  be  remarked,  that  as 
the  earthly  king  who  throws  a  moral  ag- 
grandizement around  him  by  the  act  of  a 
single  day,  finds  that  after  its  performance 
he  may  have  the  space  of  many  years  for 
gathering  to  himself  the  triumphs  of  an 
extended  reign;  so  the  King  who  sits  on 
high,  and  with  whom  one  day  is  as  a  thou- 
sand years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one 
day,  will  find,  that  after  the  period  of  that 
special  administration  is  ended,  by  which 
this  strayed  world  is  again  brought  back 
within  the  limits  of  his  favored  creation, 
there  is  room  enough  along  the  mighty 
track  of  eternity  for  accumulating  upon  him- 
self a  glory  as  wide  and  as  universal  as  is 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  145 

the  extent  of  his  dominions.  You  will  allow 
the  most  illustrious  of  this  world's  poten- 
tates to  give  some  hour  of  his  private  his- 
tory to  a  deed  of  cottage  or  of  domestic 
tenderness ;  and  every  time  you  think  of 
the  interesting  story,  you  will  feel  how 
sweetly  and  how  gracefully  the  remembrance 
of  it  Wends  itself  with  the  fame  of  his 
public  achievements.  But  still,  you  think 
that  there  would  not  have  been  room  enough 
for  these  achievements  of  his,  had  much  of 
his  time  been  spent  either  among  the  hab- 
itations of  the  poor,  or  in  the  retirement  of 
his  own  family ;  and  you  conceive  that  it 
is  because  a  single  day  bears  so  small  a 
proportion  to  the  time  of  his  whole  history, 
that  he  has  been  able  to  combine  an  inter- 
esting display  of  private  worth  with  all  that 
brilliancy  of  exhibition  which  has  brought 
him  down  to  posterity  in  the  character  of  an 
august  and  mighty  sovereign. 

Now  apply  this  to  the  matter  before  us. 
Had  the  history  of  our  redemption  been 
confined  within  the  limits  of  a  single  day, 
the  argument  that  infidelity  has  drawn  from 
the  multitude  of  other  worlds  would  never 
have  been  offered.  It  is  true,  that  ours  is 


H6  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

but  an  insignificant  portion  of  the  territory 
of  God;  but  if  the  attentions  by  which  he 
has  signalized  it  had  only  taken  up  a 
single  day,  this  would  never  have  occurred^ 
to  us  as  forming  any  sensible  withdraw- 
ment  of  the  mind  of  the  Deity  from  the 
concerns  of  this  vast  and  universal  govern- 
ment. It  is  the  time  which  the  plan  of  our 
salvation  requires,  that  startles  all  those  on 
whom  this  argument  has  any  impression.  It 
is  the  time  taken  up  about  this  paltry 
world  which  they  feel  to  be  out  of  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  other  worlds,  and  to 
the  immensity  of  the  surrounding  creation. 
Now,  to  meet  this  impression,  I  do  not 
insist  at  present  on  what  I  have  already 
brought  forward,  that  God,  whose  ways  are 
not  as  our  ways,  can  have  his  eye  at  the 
same  instant  on  every  place,  and  can  divide 
and  diversify  his  attention  into  any  number 
of  distinct  exercises.  "What  I  have  now  to 
remark  is,  that  the  infidel  who  urges  the 
astronomical  objection  to  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity, is  only  looking  with  half  an  eye  to 
the  principle  on  which  it  rests.  Carry  out 
the  principle,  and  the  objection  vanishes. 
He  looks  abroad  on  the  immensity  of  space, 


ANGELS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  MAN.  147 

and  tells  us  how  possible  it  is,  that  this 
narrow  corner  of  it  can  be  so  distinguished 
by  the  attentions  of  the  Deity.  Why  does 
he  not  also  look  abroad  on  the  magnifi- 
cence of  eternity,  and  perceive  how  the 
whole  period  of  these  peculiar  attentions, 
how  the  whole  time  which  elapses  between 
the  fall  of  man  and  the  consummation  of 
the  scheme  of  his  recovery,  is  but  the 
twinkling  of  a  moment  to  the  mighty  roll 
of  innumerable  ages?  The  whole  interval 
between  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ's  leaving 
his  Father's  abode  to  sojourn  among  us,  to 
that  time  when  he  shall  have  put  all  his 
enemies  under  his  feet,  and  delivered  up 
the  kingdom  to  G-od,  even  his  Father,  that 
God  may  be  all  in  all — the  whole  of  this 
interval  bears  as  small  a  proportion  to  the 
whole  of  the  Almighty's  reign,  as  this  soli- 
tary world  does  to  the  universe  around  it, 
and  an  infinitely  smaller  proportion  than 
any  time,  however  short,  which  an  earthly 
monarch  spends  on  some  enterprise  of  pri- 
vate benevolence,  does  to  the  whole  walk 
of  his  public  and  recorded  history. 

Why  then  does  not  the   man  who   can 
shoot  his   conceptions    so    sublimely   abroad 


148  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

over  the  field  of  an  immensity  that  knows 
no  limits  —  why  does  he  not  also  shoot 
them  forward  through  the  vista  of  a  suc- 
cession that  ever  flows  without  stop  and 
without  termination  ?  He  has  burst  across 
the  confines  of  this  world's  habitation  in 
space,  and  out  of  the  field  which  lies  on 
the  other  side  of  it  has  he  gathered  an 
argument  against  the  truth  of  revelation. 
I  feel  that  I  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
burst  across  the  confines  of  this  world's  his- 
tory in  time,  and  out  of  the  futurity  which 
lies  beyond  it  can  I  gather  that  which 
will  blow  the  argument  to  pieces,  or  stamp 
upon  it  all  the  narrowness  of  a  partial  and 
mistaken  calculation.  The  day  is  coming 
when  the  whole  of  this  wondrous  history 
shall  be  looked  back  upon  by  the  eye  of 
remembrance,  and  be  regarded  as  one  inci- 
dent in  the  extended  annals  of  creation, 
and  with  all  the  illustration  and  all  the 
glory  it  has  thrown  on  the  character  of  the 
Deity,  will  it  be  seen  as  a  single  step  in 
the  evolution  of  his  designs;  and  long  as 
the  time  may  appear,  from  the  first  act  of 
our  redemption  to  its  final  accomplishment, 
and  close  and  exclusive  as  we  may  think 


ANGELS'   KNOWLEDGE   OF  MAN.  149 

the  attentions  of  God  upon  it,  it  will  be 
found  that  it  has  left  him  room  enough  for 
all  his  concerns,  and  that  on  the  high  scale 
of  eternity  it  is  hut  one  of  those  passing  and 
ephemeral  transactions  which  crowd  the  his- 
tory of  a  never-ending  administration. 


150  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 


DISCOURSE    V. 

ON   THE    SYMPATHY   THAT   IS    FELT   FOR   MAN   IN 
THE  DISTANT  PLACES  OF  CREATION. 

"I  say  unto  you,  that  likewise  joy  shall  be  in  heaven  over 
one  sinner  that  repenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just 
persons  which  need  no  repentance."  Luke  15  : 7. 

I  HAVE  already  attempted  at  full  length 
to  establish  the  position,  that  the  infidel 
argument  of  astronomers  goes  to  expunge  a 
natural  perfection  from  the  character  of  God, 
even  that  wondrous  property  of  his,  by  which 
he,  at  the  same  instant  of  time,  can  bend 
a  close  and  a  careful  attention  on  a  count- 
less diversity  of  objects,  and  diffuse  the  inti- 
macy of  his  power  and  of  his  presence  from 
the  greatest  to  the  minutest  and  most  insig- 
nificant of  them  all.  I  also  adverted  shortly 
to  this  other  circumstance,  that  it  went  to 
impair  a  moral  attribute  of  the  Deity.  It 
goes  to  impair  the  benevolence  of  his  nature. 
It  is  saying  much  for  the  benevolence  of 
God,  to  say  that  a  single  world,  or  a  single 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          151 

system  is  not  enough  for  it;  that  it  must 
have  the  spread  of  a  mightier  region,  on 
which  it  may  pour  forth  a  tide  of  exuber- 
ancy throughout  all  its  provinces ;  that  as 
far  as  our  vision  can  carry  us,  it  has  strewed 
immensity  with  the  floating  receptacles  of 
life,  and  has  stretched  over  each  of  them  the 
garniture  of  such  a  sky  as  mantles  our  own 
habitation ;  and  that  even  from  distances 
which  are  far  beyond  the  reach  of  human 
eye,  the  songs  of  gratitude  and  praise  may 
now  be  arising  to  the  one  God,  who  sits 
surrounded  by  the  regards  of  his  one  great 
and  universal  family. 

Now,  it  is  saying  much  for  the  benevo- 
lence of  God,  to  say  that  it  sends  forth  these 
wide  and  distant  emanations  over  the  sur- 
face of  a  territory  so  ample,  that  the  world 
we  inhabit,  lying  imbedded  as  it  does  amidst 
so  much  surrounding  greatness,  shrinks  into 
a  point  that  to  the  universal  eye  might 
appear  to  be  almost  imperceptible.  But  does 
it  not  add  to  the  power  and  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  this  universal  eye,  that  at  the  very 
moment  it  is  taking  a  comprehensive  survey 
of  the  vast,  it  can  fasten  a  steady  and  undis- 
tracted  attention  on  each  minute  and  sepa- 


152  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

rate  portion  of  it ;  that  at  the  very  moment 
it  is  looking  at  all  worlds,  it  can  look  most 
pointedly  and  most  intelligently  to  each  of 
them;  that  at  the  very  moment  it  sweeps 
the  field  of  immensity,  it  can  settle  all  the 
earnestness  of  its  regards  upon  every  distinct 
handbreadth  of  that  field ;  that  at  the  very 
moment  at  which  it  embraces  the  totality 
of  existence,  it  can  send  a  most  thorough 
and  penetrating  inspection  into  each  of  its 
details,  and  into  every  one  of  its  endless 
diversities  ?  You  cannot  fail  to  perceive  how 
much  this  adds  to  the  power  of  the  all-seeing 
eye.  Tell  me,  then,  if  it  do  not  add  as  much 
perfection  to  the  benevolence  of  God,  that 
while  it  is  expatiating  over  the  vast  field 
of  created  things,  there  is  not  one  portion  of 
the  field  overlooked  by  it;  that  while  it 
scatters  blessings  over  the  whole  of  an  infi- 
nite range,  it  causes  them  to  descend  in  a 
shower  of  plenty  on  every  separate  habita- 
tion ;  that  while  his  arm  is  underneath  and 
around  about  all  worlds,  he  enters  within 
the  precincts  of  every  one  of  them,  and  gives 
a  care  and  a  tenderness  to  each  individual 
of  their  teeming  population.  0,  does  not  the 
Grod,  who  is  said  to  be  love,  shed  over  this 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          153 

attribute  of  his  its  finest  illustration,  when, 
while  he  sits  in  the  highest  heaven,  and 
pours  out  his  fulness  on  the  whole  subordi- 
nate domain  of  nature  and  of  providence, 
he  bows  a  pitying  regard  on  the  very  hum- 
blest of  his  children,  and  sends  his  reviving 
Spirit  into  every  heart,  and  cheers  by  his 
presence  every  home,  and  provides  for  the 
wants  of  every  family,  and  watches  every 
sick-bed,  and  listens  to  the  complaints  of 
every  sufferer;  and  while  by  his  wondrous 
mind  the  weight  of  universal  government  is 
borne,  0,  is  it  not  more  wondrous  and  more 
excellent  still,  that  he  feels  for  every  sorrow, 
and  has  an  ear  open  to  every  prayer  ? 

"  It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall 
be,"  says  the  apostle  John,  "but  we  know 
that  when  he  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like 
him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is."  It  is 
the  present  lot  of  the  angels,  that  they  behold 
the  face  of  our  Father  in  heaven,  and  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  effect  of  this  was  to 
form  and  to  perpetuate  in  them  the  moral 
likeness  of  himself,  and  that  they  reflect 
back  upon  him  his  own  image,  and  that  thus 
a  diffused  resemblance  to  the  Godhead  is 
kept  up  among  all  those  adoring  worship- 

7* 


154  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

pers  who  live  in  the  near  and  rejoicing  con- 
templation of  the  Godhead.  Mark  then  how 
that  peculiar  and  endearing  feature  in  the 
goodness  of  the  Deity,  which  we  have  just 
now  adverted  to — mark  how  beauteously  it 
is  reflected  downward  upon  us  in  the  re- 
vealed attitude  of  angels.  From  the  high 
eminences  of  heaven,  are  they  bending  a 
wakeful  regard  over  the  men  of  this  sinful 
world ;  and  the  repentance  of  every  one  of 
them  spreads  a  joy  and  a  high  gratulation 
throughout  all  its  dwelling-places.  Put  this 
trait  of  the  angelic  character  into  contrast 
with  the  dark  and  lowering  spirit  of  an  infi- 
del. He  is  told  of  the  multitude  of  other 
worlds,  and  he  feels  a  kindling  magnificence 
in  the  conception,  and  he  is  seduced  by  an 
elevation  which  he  cannot  carry,  and  from 
this  airy  summit  does  he  look  down  on  the 
insignificance  of  the  world  we  occupy,  and 
pronounces  it  to  be  unworthy  of  those  visits 
and  of  those  attentions  which  we  read  of  in 
the  New  Testament.  He  is  unable  to  wing 
his  upward  way  along  the  scale,  either  of 
moral  or  of  natural  perfection ;  and  when 
the  wonderful  extent  of  the  field  is  made 
known  to  him,  over  which  the  wealth  of  the 


ANGELS'  SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          155 

Divinity  is  lavished — there  he  stops  and  wil- 
ders,  and  altogether  misses  this  essential  per- 
ception, that  the  power  and  perfection  of 
the  Divinity  are  not  more  displayed  by  the 
mere  magnitude  of  the  field,  than  they  are 
by  that  minute  and  exquisite  filling  up, 
which  leaves  not  its  smallest  portions  neg- 
lected, but  which  imprints  the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  upon  every  one  of  them;  and 
proves,  by  every  flower  of  the  pathless  desert, 
as  well  as  by  every  orb  of  immensity,  how 
this  unsearchable  Being  can  care  for  all  and 
provide  for  all,  and  throned  in  mystery  too 
high  for  us,  can  throughout  every  instant 
of  time,  keep  his  attentive  eye  on  every 
separate  thing  that  he  has  formed,  and  by 
an  act  of  his  thoughtful  and  presiding  intel- 
ligence, can  constantly  embrace  all. 

But  G-od,  compassed  about  as  he  is  with 
light  inaccessible  and  full  of  glory,  lies  so 
hidden  from  the  ken  and  conception  of  all 
our  faculties,  that  the  spirit  of  man  sinks 
exhausted  by  its  attempts  to  comprehend 
him.  Could  the  image  of  the  Supreme  be 
placed  direct  before  the  eye  of  the  mind,  that 
flood  of  splendor  which  is  ever  issuing  from 
him  on  all  who  have  the  privilege  of  behold- 


156  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ing,  would  not  only  dazzle,  but  overpower 
us.  And  therefore  it  is  that  I  bid  you  look 
to  the  reflection  of  that  image,  and  thus  to 
take  a  view  of  its  mitigated  glories,  and  to 
gather  the  lineaments  of  the  Godhead  in  the 
face  of  those  righteous  angels,  who  luiyc 
never  thrown  away  from  them  the  resem- 
blance in  which  they  were  created ;  and 
unable  as  you  are  to  support  the  grace  and 
the  majesty  of  that  countenance,  before  which 
the  sons  and  the  prophets  of  other  days  fell, 
and  became  as  dead  men,  let  us,  before  we 
bring  this  argument  to  a  close,  borrow  one 
lesson  of  Him  who  sitteth  on  the  throne, 
from  the  aspect  and  the  revealed  doings  of 
those  who  are  surrounding  it. 

The  infidel,  then,  as  he  widens  the  field 
of  his  contemplations,  would  suffer  its  every 
separate  object  to  die  away  into  forgetful- 
ness;  these  angels,  expatiating  as  they  do 
over  the  range  of  a  loftier  universality,  are 
represented  as  all  awake  to  the  history  of 
each  of  its  distinct  and  subordinate  prov- 
inces. The  infidel,  with  his  mind  afloat 
among  suns  and  among  systems,  can  find 
no  place  in  his  already  occupied  regards  for 
that  humble  planet  which  lodges  and  accom- 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          157 

modates  our  species ;  the  angels,  standing 
on  a  loftier  summit,  and  with  a  mightier 
prospect  of  creation  before  them,  are  yet 
represented  as  looking  down  on  this  single 
world,  and  attentively  marking  the  every 
feeling  and  the  every  demand  of  all  its  fam- 
ilies. The  infidel,  by  sinking  us  down  to 
an  unnoticeable  minuteness,  would  lose  sight 
of  our  dwelling-place  altogether,  and  spread 
a  darkening  shroud  of  oblivion  over  all  the 
concerns  and  all  the  interests  of  men;  but 
the  angels  will  not  so  abandon  us ;  and  un- 
dazzled  by  the  whole  surpassing  grandeur 
of  that  scenery  which  is  around  them,  are 
they  revealed  as  directing  all  the  fulness  of 
their  regard  to  this  our  habitation,  and  cast- 
ing a  longing  and  a  benignant  eye  on  our- 
selves and  on  our  children.  The  infidel  will 
tell  us  of  those  worlds  which  roll  afar,  and 
the  number  of  which  outstrips  the  arithmetic 
of  the  human  understanding,  and  then  with 
the  hardness  of  an  unfeeling  calculation,  will 
he  consign  the  one  we  occupy,  with  all  its 
guilty  generations,  to  despair.  But  He  who 
counts  the  number  of  the  stars,  is  set 
forth  to  us  as  looking  at  every  inhabitant 
among  the  millions  of  our  species,  and  by 


158  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

the  word  of  the  gospel  beckoning  to  him  with 
the  hand  of  invitation,  and  on  the  very  first 
step  of  his  return,  as  moving  towards  him 
with  all  the  eagerness  of  the  prodigal's  father, 
to  receive  him  back  again  into  that  pres- 
ence from  which  he  had  wandered.  And 
as  to  this  world,  in  favor  of  which  the 
scowling  infidel  will  not  permit  one  solitary 
movement,  all  heaven  is  represented  as  in 
a  stir  about  its  restoration ;  and  there  can- 
not a  single  son,  or  a  single  daughter,  be 
recalled  from  sin  unto  righteousness,  without 
an  acclamation  of  joy  among  the  hosts  of 
paradise.  Aye,  and  I  can  say  it  of  the 
humblest  and  the  un worthiest  of  you  all, 
that  the  eye  of  angels  is  upon  him,  and  that 
his  repentance  would,  at  this  moment,  send 
forth  a  wave  of  delighted  sensibility  through- 
out the  mighty  throng  of  their  innumerable 
legions. 

Now,  the  single  question  I  have  to  ask, 
is,  On  which  of  the  two  sides  of  this  con- 
trast do  we  see  most  of  the  impress  of 
heaven  ?  Which  of  the  two  would  be  most 
glorifying  to  God  ?  Which  of  them  carries 
upon  it  most  of  that  evidence  which  lies  in 
its  having  a  celestial  character  ?  For  if  it 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.  159 

be  the  side  of  the  infidel,  then  must  all  our 
hopes  expire  with  the  ratifying  of  that  fatal 
sentence  by  which  the  world  is  doomed, 
through  its  insignificancy,  to  perpetual  exclu- 
sion from  the  attentions  of  the  Godhead.  I 
have  long  been  knocking  at  the  door  of  your 
understanding,  and  have  tried  to  find  an 
admittance  to  it  for  many  an  argument.  I 
now  make  my  appeal  to  the  sensibilities  of 
your  heart;  and  tell  me,  to  whom  does  the 
moral  feeling  within  it  yield  its  readiest  testi- 
mony :  to  the  infidel  who  would  make  this 
world  of  ours  vanish  away  into  abandon- 
ment; or  to  those  angels,  who  ring  through- 
out all  their  mansions  the  hosannas  of  joy 
over  every  one  individual  of  its  repentant 
population  ? 

And  here  I  cannot  omit  to  take  advan- 
tage of  that  opening  with  which  our  Saviour 
has  furnished  us  by  the  parables  of  this  chap- 
ter, and  admits  us  into  a  familiar  view  of 
that  principle  on  which  the  inhabitants  of 
heaven  are  so  awake  to  the  deliverance  and 
the  restoration  of  our  species.  To  illustrate 
the  difference  in  the  reach  of  knowledge  and 
of  affection  between  a  man  and  an  angel, 
let  us  think  of  the  difference  of  reach  be- 


160  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

tween  one  man  and  another.  You  may  often 
witness  a  man  who  feels  neither  tenderness 
nor  care  beyond  the  precincts  of  his  own 
family,  but  who,  on  the  strength  of  those 
instinctive  fondnesses  which  nature  has  im- 
planted in  his  bosom,  may  earn  the  character 
of  an  amiable  father,  or  a  kind  husband,  or 
a  bright  example  of  all  that  is  soft  and 
endearing  in  the  relations  of  domestic  society. 
Now  conceive  him,  in  addition  to  all  this, 
to  carry  his  affections  abroad,  without  at  the 
same  time  any  abatement  of  their  intensity 
towards  the  objects  which  are  at  home  — 
that  stepping  across  the  limits  of  the  house 
he  occupies,  he  takes  an  interest  in  the  fam- 
ilies which  are  near  him — that  he  lends  his 
services  to  the  town  or  the  district  wherein 
he  is  placed,  and  gives  up  a  portion  of  his 
time  to  the  thoughtful  labors  of  a  humane  and 
public-spirited  citizen.  By  this  enlargement 
in  the  sphere  of  his  attention,  he  has  ex- 
tended his  reach;  and  provided  he  has  not 
done  so  at  the  expense  of  that  regard  which 
is  due  to  his  family — a  thing  which,  cramped 
and  confined  as  we  are,  we  are  very  apt  in 
the  exercise  of  our  humble  faculties  to  do — 
I  put  it  to  you,  whether  by  extending  the 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY   WITH  MAN.          161 

reach  of  his  views  and  his  affections,  he  has 
not  extended  his  worth  and  his  moral  respect- 
ability along  with  it  ? 

But  I  can  conceive  a  still  further  enlarge- 
ment. I  can  figure  to  myself  a  man  whose 
wakeful  sympathy  overflows  the  field  of  his 
own  immediate  neighborhood — to  whom  the 
name  of  country  comes  with  all  the  omnipo- 
tence of  a  charm  upon  his  heart,  and  with 
all  the  urgency  of  a  most  righteous  and  resist- 
less claim  upon  his  services — who  never  hears 
the  name  of  Britain  sounded  in  his  ears,  but 
it  stirs  up  all  his  enthusiasm  in  behalf  of 
the  worth  and  the  welfare  of  his  people — 
who  gives  himself  up,  with  all  the  devoted- 
ness  of  a  passion,  to  the  best  and  the  purest 
objects  of  patriotism  —  and  who,  spurning 
away  from  him  the  vulgarities  of  party  am- 
bition, separates  his  life  and  his  labors  to  the 
fine  pursuit  of  augmenting  the  science,  or 
the  virtue,  or  the  substantial  prosperity  of 
his  nation.  0,  could  such  a  man  retain  all 
the  tenderness,  and  fulfil  all  the  duties  which 
home  and  which  neighborhood  require  of 
him,  and  at  the  same  time  expatiate  in  the 
might  of  his  untired  faculties  on  so  wide  a 
field  of  benevolent  contemplation,  would  not 


162  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

this  extension  of  reach  place  him  still  higher 
than  before,  on  the  scale  both  of  moral  and 
intellectual  gradation,  and  give  him  a  still 
brighter  and  more  enduring  name  in  the 
records  of  human  excellence  ? 

And  lastly,  I  can  conceive  a  still  loftier 
flight  of  humanity:  a  man,  the  aspiring  of 
whose  heart  for  the  good  of  man  knows  no 
limitations — whose  longings,  and  whose  con- 
ceptions on  this  subject  overleap  all  the  bar- 
riers of  geography — who,  looking  on  himself 
as  a  brother  of  the  species,  links  every  spare 
energy  which  belongs  to  him  with  the  cause 
of  its  amelioration — who  can  embrace  within 
the  grasp  of  his  ample  desires  the  whole 
family  of  mankind — and  who,  in  obedience  to 
a  heaven-born  movement  of  principle  within 
him,  separates  himself  to  some  big  and  busy 
enterprise,  which  is  to  tell  on  the  moral  des- 
tinies of  the  world.  0,  could  such  a  man 
mix  up  the  softenings  of  private  virtue  with 
the  habit  of  so  sublime  a  comprehension — 
if  amid  those  magnificent  darings  of  thought, 
and  of  performance,  the  mildness  of  his  be- 
nignant eye  could  still  continue  to  cheer  the 
retreat  of  his  family,  and  to  spread  the 
charm  and  the  sacredness  of  piety  among 


ANGELS'  SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          163 

all  its  members — could  he  even  mingle  him- 
self in  all  the  gentleness  of  a  soothed  and 
smiling  heart,  with  the  playfulness  of  his 
children,  and  also  find  strength  to  shed  the 
blessings  of  his  presence  and  his  counsel 
over  the  vicinity  around  him ;  O,  would  not 
the  combination  of  so  much  grace  with  so 
much  loftiness  only  serve  the  more  to  aggran- 
dize him  ?  Would  not  the  one  ingredient 
of  a  character  so  rare,  go  to  illustrate  and 
to  magnify  the  other?  And  would  not  you 
pronounce  him  to  be  the  fairest  specimen  of 
our  nature,  who  could  so  call  out  all  your 
tenderness,  while  he  challenged  and  com- 
pelled all  your  veneration  ? 

Nor  can  I  proceed,  at  this  point  of  my 
argument,  without  adverting  to  the  way  in 
which  this  last  and  this  largest  style  of 
benevolence  is  exemplified  in  our  own  coun- 
try, where  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  has  given 
to  many  of  its  enlightened  disciples  the  im- 
pulse of  such  a  philanthropy  as  carries 
abroad  their  wishes  and  their  endeavors  to 
the  very  outskirts  of  human  population — a 
philanthropy,  of  which  if  you  asked  the 
extent  or  the  boundary  of  its  field,  we  should 
answer,  in  the  language  of  inspiration,  that 


164  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

the  field  is  the  world — a  philanthropy  which 
overlooks  all  the  distinctions  of  cast  and  of 
color,  and  spreads  its  ample  regards  over 
the  whole  brotherhood  of  the  species — a 
philanthropy  which  attaches  itself  to  man 
in  the  general,  to  man  throughout  all  his 
varieties,  to  man  as  the  partaker  of  one  com- 
mon nature,  and  who,  in  whatever  clime  or 
latitude  you  may  meet  with  him,  is  found 
to  breathe  the  same  sympathies,  and  to  pos- 
sess the  same  high  capabilities  both  of  bliss 
and  of  improvement.  It  is  true,  that  upon 
this  subject  there  is  often  a  loose  and  un- 
settled magnificence  of  thought,  which  is 
fruitful  of  nothing  but  empty  speculation. 
But  the  men  to  whom  I  allude  have  not 
imaged  the  enterprise  in  the  form  of  a  thing 
unknown.  They  have  given  it  a  local  habi- 
tation. They  have  bodied  it  forth  in  deed 
and  in  accomplishment.  They  have  turned 
the  dream  into  a  reality.  In  them  the 
power  of  a  lofty  generalization  meets  with 
its  happiest  attemperament,  in  the  principle 
and  perseverance  and  all  the  chastening  and 
subduing  virtues  of  the  New  Testament. 
And  were  I  in  search  of  that  fine  union  of 
grace  and  of  greatness  which  I  have  now 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.  165 

been  insisting  on,  and  in  virtue  of  which 
the  enlightened  Christian  can  at  once  find 
room  in  his  bosom  for  the  concerns  of  uni- 
versal humanity,  and  for  the  play  of  kind- 
liness towards  every  individual  he  meets 
with,  I  could  nowhere  more  readily  expect 
to  find  it  than  with  the  worthies  of  our 
own  land — the  Howard  of  a  former  genera- 
tion, who  paced  it  over  Europe  in  quest  of 
the  unseen  wretchedness  which  abounds  in 
it;  or  in  such  men  of  our  present  genera- 
tion as  Wilberforce,  who  lifted  his  unwea- 
ried voice  against  the  biggest  outrage  ever 
practised  on  our  nature,  till  he  wrought  its 
extermination;  and  Clarkson,  who  plied  his 
assiduous  task  at  rearing  the  materials  of 
its  impressive  history,  and  at  length  carried, 
for  this  righteous  cause,  the  mind  of  parlia- 
ment ;  and  Carey,  from  whose  hand  the 
generations  of  the  East  are  now  receiving 
the  elements  of  their  moral  renovation;  and 
in  fine,  those  elevated  and  devoted  men 
who  count  not  their  lives  dear  unto  them, 
but  going  forth  every  year  from  the  island 
of  our  habitation,  carrying  the  message  of 
Heaven  over  the  face  of  the  world,  and  in  the 
front  of  the  severest  obloquy,  are  now  labor- 


166  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ing  in  the  remotest  lands,  and  are  reclaim- 
ing another  and  another  portion  from  the 
wastes  of  dark  and  fallen  humanity,  and 
are  widening  the  domains  of  gospel  light 
and  gospel  principle  among  them,  and  are 
spreading  a  moral  beauty  around  the  every 
spot  on  which  they  pitch  their  lowly  taber- 
nacle, and  are  at  length  compelling  even 
the  eye  and  the  testimony  of  gainsayers  by 
the  success  of  their  noble  enterprise,  and 
are  forcing  the  exclamation  of  delighted  sur- 
prise from  the  charmed  and  the  arrested 
traveller,  as  he  looks  at  the  softening  tints 
which  they  are  now  spreading  over  the  wil- 
derness, and  as  he  hears  the  sound  of  the 
chapel  bell,  and  as  in  those  haunts  where, 
at  the  distance  of  half  a  generation,  savages 
would  have  scowled  upon  his  path,  he  regales 
himself  with  the  hum  of  missionary  schools, 
and  the  lovely  spectacle  of  peaceful  and 
Christian  villages. 

Such  then  is  the  benevolence,  at  once 
so  gentle  and  so  lofty,  of  those  men  who, 
sanctified  by  the  faith  that  is  in  Jesus,  have 
had  their  hearts  visited  from  heaven  by  a 
beam  of  warmth  and  of  sacredness.  What 
then,  I  should  like  to  know,  is  the  benevo- 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          167 

lence  of  the  place  from  whence  such  an 
influence  cometh?  How  wide  is  the  com- 
pass of  this  virtue  there,  and  how  exquisite 
is  the  feeling  of  its  tenderness,  and  how 
pure  and  how  fervent  are  its  aspirings  among 
those  unfallen  beings  who  have  no  dark- 
ness, and  no  encumbering  weight  of  corrup- 
tion to  strive  against  ?  Angels  have  a  migh- 
tier reach  of  contemplation.  Angels  can  look 
upon  this  world,  and  all  which  it  inherits, 
as  the  part  of  a  larger  family.  Angels  were 
in  the  full  exercise  of  their  powers  even  at 
the  first  infancy  of  our  species,  and  shared 
in  the  gratulations  of  that  period,  when  at 
the  birth  of  humanity  all  intelligent  nature 
felt  a  gladdening  impulse,  and  the  morning 
stars  sung  together  for  joy.  They  loved  us 
even  with  the  love  which  a  family  on  earth 
bears  to  a  younger  sister ;  and  the  very 
childhood  of  our  tinier  faculties  did  only 
serve  the  more  to  endear  us  to  them;  and 
though  born  at  a  later  hour  in  the  history 
of  creation,  did  they  regard  us  as  heirs  of 
the  same  destiny  with  themselves,  to  rise 
along  with  them  in  the  scale  of  moral  ele- 
vation, to  bow  at  the  same  footstool,  and 
to  partake  in  those  high  dispensations  of  a 


168  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

parent's  kindness  and  a  parent's  care,  which 
are  ever  emanating  from  the  throne  of  the 
Eternal  on  all  the  members  of  a  duteous 
and  affectionate  family.  Take  the  reach  of 
an  angel's  mind,  but  at  the  same  time,  take 
the  seraphic  fervor  of  an  angel's  benevolence 
along  with  it:  how  from  the  eminence  on 
which  he  stands  he  may  have  an  eye  upon 
many  worlds,  and  a  remembrance  upon  the 
origin  and  the  successive  concerns  of  every 
one  of  them — how  he  may  feel  the  full  force 
of  a  most  affecting  relationship  with  the 
habitants  of  each,  as  the  offspring  of  one 
common  Father ;  and  though  it  be  both  the 
effect  and  the  evidence  of  our  depravity, 
that  we  cannot  sympathize  with  these  pure 
and  generous  ardors  of  a  celestial  spirit — 
how  it  may  consist  with  the  lofty  compre- 
hension, and  the  ever-breathing  love  of  an 
angel,  that  he  can  both  shoot  his  benevo- 
lence abroad  over  a  mighty  expanse  of 
planets  and  of  systems,  and  lavish  a  flood 
of  tenderness  on  each  individual  of  their 
teeming  population. 

Keep  all  this  in  view,  and  you  cannot 
fail  to  perceive  how  the  principle,  so  finely 
and  so  copiously  illustrated  in  this  chapter, 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          169 

may  be  brought  to  meet  the  infidelity  we 
have  thus  long  been  employed  in  combating. 
It  was  nature,  and  the  experience  of  every 
bosom  will  affirm  it — it  was  nature  in  the 
shepherd  to  leave  the  ninety  and  nine  of 
his  flock  forgotten  and  alone  in  the  wilder- 
ness, and  betaking  himself  to  the  moun- 
tains, to  give  all  his  labor  and  all  his  con- 
cern to  the  pursuit  of  one  solitary  wanderer. 
It  was  nature — and  we  are  told  in  the  pas- 
sage before  us,  that  it  is  such  a  portion  of 
nature  as  belongs  not  merely  to  men,  but 
to  angels — when  the  woman,  with  her  mind 
in  a  state  of  listlessness  as  to  the  nine  pieces 
of  silver  that  were  in  secure  custody,  turned 
the  whole  force  of  her  anxiety  to  the  one 
piece  which  she  had  lost,  and  for  which 
she  had  to  light  a  candle,  and  to  sweep  the 
house,  and  to  search  diligently  until  she 
found  it.  It  was  nature  in  her  to  rejoice 
more  over  that  piece,  than  over  all  the  rest 
of  them,  and  to  tell  it  abroad  among  friends 
and  neighbors,  that  they  might  rejoice  along 
with  her ;  aye,  and  sadly  effaced  as  human- 
ity is,  in  all  her  original  lineaments,  this 
is  a  part  of  our  nature,  the  very  movements 
of  which  are  experienced  in  heaven,  "  where 

Chr.  Rav.  8 


170  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

there  is  more  joy  over  one  sinner  that  repent- 
eth,  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons 
who  need  no  repentance."  For  any  thing 
I  know,  the  very  planet  that  rolls  in  the 
immensity  around  me,  may  be  a  land  of 
righteousness,  and  be  a  member  of  the  house- 
hold of  God,  and  have  her  secure  dwelling- 
place  within  that  ample  limit  which  em- 
braces his  great  and  universal  family.  But 
I  know  at  least  of  one  wanderer,  and  how 
wofully  she  has  strayed  from  peace  and  from 
purity;  and  how,  in  dreary  alienation  from 
Him  who  made  her,  she  has  bewildered  her- 
self among  those  many  devious  tracks  which 
have  carried  her  afar  from  the  path  of 
immortality;  and  how  sadly  tarnished  all 
those  beauties  and  felicities  are  which  prom- 
ised, on  that  morning  of  her  existence  when 
G-od  looked  on  her  and  saw  that  all  was 
very  good,  which  promised  so  richly  to  bless 
and  to  adorn  her;  and  how  in  the  eye  of 
the  whole  unfallen  creation,  she  has  re- 
nounced  all  this  goodliness,  and  is  fast  depart- 
ing away  from  them  into  guilt  and  wretch- 
ness  and  shame.  0,  if  there  be  any  truth 
in  this  chapter,  and  any  sweet  or  touching 
nature  in  the  principle  which  runs  through- 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          171 

out  all  his  parables,  let  us  cease  to  wonder, 
though  they  who  surround  the  throne  of  love 
should  he  looking  so  intently  towards  us ; 
or  though,  in  the  way  hy  which  they  have 
singled  us  out,  all  the  other  orbs  of  space 
should,  for  one  short  season  on  the  scale  of 
eternity,  appear  to  be  forgotten;  or  though, 
for  every  step  of  her  recovery,  and  for  every 
individual  who  is  rendered  back  again  to  the 
fold  from  which  he  was  separated,  another 
and  another  message  of  triumph  should  be 
made  to  circulate  among  the  hosts  of  para- 
dise; or  though,  lost  as  we  are,  and  sunk 
in  depravity  as  we  are,  all  the  sympathies 
of  heaven  should  now  be  awake  on  the 
enterprise  of  Him  who  has  travailed,  in  the 
greatness  of  his  strength,  to  seek  and  to 
save  us. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  remark  how  fine 
a  harmony  there  is  between  the  law  of  sym- 
pathetic nature  in  heaven,  and  the  most 
touching  exhibitions  of  it  on  the  face  of  our 
world.  "When  one  of  a  numerous  household 
droops  under  the  power  of  disease,  is  not 
that  the  one  to  whom  all  the  tenderness  is 
turned,  and  who,  in  a  manner,  monopolizes 
the  inquiries  of  his  neighborhood  and  the 


172  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

care  of  his  family?  "When  the  sighing  of 
the  midnight  storm  sends  a  dismal  forebod- 
ing into  the  mother's  heart,  to  whom  of  all 
her  offspring,  I  would  ask,  are  her  thoughts 
and  her  anxieties  then  wandering?  Is  it 
not  to  her  sailor  hoy,  whom  her  fancy  has 
placed  amid  the  rude  and  angry  surges  of 
the  ocean?  Does  not  this,  the  hour  of  his 
apprehended  danger,  concentrate  upon  him 
the  whole  force  of  her  wakeful  meditations? 
And  does  not  he  engross,  for  a  season,  her 
every  sensibility  and  her  every  prayer  ?  We 
sometimes  hear  of  shipwrecked  passengers 
thrown  upon  a  barbarous  shore,  and  seized 
upon  by  its  prowling  inhabitants,  and  hur- 
ried away  through  the  tracks  of  a  dreary 
and  unknown  wilderness,  and  sold  into  cap- 
tivity, and  loaded  with  the  fetters  of  irre- 
coverable bondage ;  and  who,  stripped  of  every 
other  liberty  but  the  liberty  of  thought,  feel 
even  this  to  be  another  ingredient  of  wretch- 
edness :  for  what  can  they  think  of  but  home  ? 
and  as  all  its  kind  and  tender  imagery  comes 
upon  their  remembrance,  how  can  they  think 
of  it  but  in  the  bitterness  of  despair?  0, 
tell  me,  when  the  fame  of  all  this  disaster 
reaches  his  family,  who  is  the  member  of 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.          173 

it  to  whom  is  directed  the  full  tide  of  its 
griefs  and  of  its  sympathies?  Who  is  it 
that,  for  weeks  and  for  months,  usurps  their 
every  feeling,  and  calls  out  their  largest 
sacrifices,  and  sets  them  to  the  busiest  expe- 
dients for  getting  him  back  again  ?  "Who  is 
it  that  makes  them  forgetful  of  themselves 
and  of  all  around  them ;  and  tell  me  if  you 
can  assign  a  limit  to  the  pains  and  the  ex- 
ertions and  the  surrenders  which  afflicted 
parents  and  weeping  sisters  would  make  to 
seek  and  to  save  him  ? 

Now  conceive,  as  we  are  warranted  to 
do  by  the  parables  of  this  chapter,  the  prin- 
ciple of  all  these  earthly  exhibitions  to  be 
in  full  operation  around  the  throne  of  God. 
Conceive  the  universe  to  be  one  secure  and 
rejoicing  family,  and  that  this  alienated  world 
is  the  only  strayed,  or  only  captive  member 
belonging  to  it,  and  we  shall  cease  to  won- 
der, that  from  the  first  period  of  the  captivity 
of  our  species,  down  to  the  consummation 
of  their  history  in  time,  there  should  be  such 
a  movement  in  heaven;  or  that  angels  should 
so  often  have  sped  their  commissioned  way 
on  the  errand  of  our  recovery ;  or  that  the 
Son  of  Grod  should  have  bowed  himself  down 


174  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

to  the  burden  of  our  mysterious  atonement ; 
or  that  the  Spirit  of  God  should  now,  by 
the  busy  variety  of  his  all-powerful  influ- 
ences, be  carrying  forward  that  dispensation 
of  grace  which  is  to  make  us  meet  for  read- 
mittance  into  the  mansions  of  the  celestial. 
Only  think  of  love  as  the  reigning  principle 
there — of  love  as  sending  forth  its  energies 
and  aspirations  to  the  quarter  where  its  object 
is  most  in  danger  of  being  for  ever  lost  to 
it  —  of  love  as  called  forth  by  this  single 
circumstance  to  its  uttermost  exertion,  and 
the  most  exquisite  feeling  of  its  tenderness, 
and  then  shall  we  come  to  a  distinct  and 
familiar  explanation  of  this  whole  mystery. 
Nor  shall  we  resist,  by  our  incredulity,  the 
gospel  message  any  longer,  though  it  tells 
us  that  throughout  the  whole  of  this  world's 
history,  long  in  our  eyes,  but  only  a  little 
month  in  the  high  periods  of  immortality, 
so  much  of  the  vigilance,  and  so  much  of 
the  earnestness  of  heaven  should  have  been 
expended  on  the  recovery  of  its  guilty  popu- 
lation. 

There  is  another  touching  trait  of  nature 
which  goes  finely  to  heighten  this  prin- 
ciple, and  still  more  forcibly  to  demonstrate 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN.  175 

its  application  to  our  present  argument.  So 
long  as  the  dying  child  of  David  was  alive, 
he  was  kept  on  the  stretch  of  anxiety  and 
of  suffering  with  regard  to  it.  When  it 
expired,  he  arose  and  comforted  himself. 
This  narrative  of  king  David  is  in  harmony 
with  all  that  we  experience  of  our  own 
movements  and  our  own  sensibilities.  It  is 
the  power  of  uncertainty  which  gives  them 
so  active  and  so  interesting  a  play  in  our 
bosoms,  and  which  heightens  all  our  re- 
gards to  a  tenfold  pitch  of  feeling  and  of 
exercise,  and  which  fixes  down  our  watch- 
fulness upon  our  infant's  dying-bed,  and 
which  keeps  us  so  painfully  alive  to  every 
turn  and  to  every  symptom  in  the  progress 
of  its  malady,  and  which  draws  out  all 
our  affections  for  it  to  a  degree  of  intensity 
that  is  quite  unutterable,  and  which  urges 
us  on  to  ply  our  every  effort  and  our  every 
expedient,  till  hope  withdraw  its  lingering 
beam,  or  till  death  shut  the  eyes  of  our 
beloved  in  the  slumber  of  its  long  and  its 
last  repose. 

I  know  not  who  of  you  have  your  names 
written  in  the  book  of  life ;  nor  can  I  tell 
if  this  be  known  to  the  angels  which  are 


176      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

in  heaven.  While  in  the  land  of  living 
men,  you  are  under  the  power  and  applica- 
tion of  a  remedy  which,  if  taken  as  the 
gospel  prescribes,  will  renovate  the  soul,  and 
altogether  prepare  it  for  the  bloom  and  the 
vigor  of  immortality.  Wonder  not  then,  that 
with  this  principle  of  uncertainty  in  such 
full  operation,  ministers  should  feel  for  you, 
or  angels  should  feel  for  you ;  or  all  the 
sensibilities  of  heaven  should  be  awake  upon 
the  symptoms  of  your  grace  and  reforma- 
tion ;  or  the  eyes  of  those  who  stand  upon 
the  high  eminences  of  the  celestial  world, 
should  be  so  earnestly  fixed  on  the  every 
footstep  and  new  evolution  of  your  moral 
history.  Such  a  consideration  as  this  should 
do  something  more  than  silence  the  infi- 
del objection.  It  should  give  a  practical 
effect  to  the  calls  of  repentance.  How 
will  it  go  to  aggravate  the  whole  guilt  of 
our  impenitency,  should  we  stand  out 
against  the  power  and  the  tenderness  of 
these  manifold  applications :  the  voice  of 
a  beseeching  God  upon  us  —  the  word  of 
salvation  at  our  very  door — the  free  offer 
of  strength  and  of  acceptance  sounded  in 
our  hearing — the  Spirit  in  readiness  with 


ANGELS'   SYMPATHY  WITH  MAN. 


177 


his  agency  to  meet  our  every  desire  and 
our  every  inquiry — angels  beckoning  us  to 
their  company — and  the  very  first  move- 
ments of  our  awakened  conscience"  draw- 
ing upon  us  all  their  regards  and  all  their 
earnestness. 


178  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 


DISCOURSE    VI. 

ON  THE  CONTEST  FOR  AN  ASCENDENCY  OVER  MAN, 
AMONG  THE  HIGHER  ORDERS  OF  INTELLIGENCE. 

"And  having  spoiled  principalities  and  powers,  he  made  a 
show  of  them  openly,  triumphing  over  them  in  it."    Col.  2:15. 

THOUGH  these  astronomical  discourses  be 
now  drawing  to  a  close,  it  is  not  because  I 
feel  that  much  more  might  not  be  said  on 
the  subject  of  them,  both  in  the  way  of  argu- 
ment and  of  illustration.  The  whole  of  the 
infidel  difficulty  proceeds  tipon  the  assump- 
tion, that  the  exclusive  bearing  of  Chris- 
tianity is  upon  the  people  of  our  earth ;  that 
this  solitary  planet  is  in  no  way  implicated 
with  the  concerns  of  a  wider  dispensation; 
that  the  revelation  we  have  of  the  dealings 
of  G-od,  in  this  district  of  his  empire,  does 
not  suit  and  subordinate  itself  to  a  system 
of  moral  administration  as  extended  as  is  the 
whole  of  his  monarchy.  Or  in  other  words, 
•because  infidels  have  not  access  to  the  whole 


ANGELIC   CONTESTS   FOR    MAN.  179 

truth,  will  they  refuse  a  part  of  it,  however 
well  attested  or  well  accredited  it  may  be ; 
because  a  mantle  of  deep  obscurity  rests  on 
the  government  of  God,  when  taken  in  all 
its  eternity  and  all  its  entireness,  will  they 
shut  their  eyes  against  that  allowance  of 
light  which  has  been  made  to  pass  downward 
upon  our  world  from  time  to  time,  through 
so  many  partial  unfoldings  ;  and  till  they 
are  made  to  know  the  share  which  other 
planets  have  in  these  communications  of 
mercy,  will  they  turn  them  away  from  the 
actual  message  which  has  come  to  their  own 
door,  and  will  neither  examine  its  creden- 
tials, nor  be  alarmed  by  its  warnings,  nor  be 
won  by  the  tenderness  of  its  invitations. 

On  that  day  when  the  secrets  of  all  hearts 
shall  be  revealed,  there  will  be  found  such 
a  wilful  duplicity  and  darkening  of  the  mind 
in  the  whole  of  this  proceeding,  as  shall 
bring  down  upon  it  the  burden  of  a  right- 
eous condemnation.  But  even  now  does  it 
lie  open  to  the  rebuke  of  philosophy,  when 
the  soundness  and  the  consistency  of  her  prin- 
ciples are  brought  faithfully  to  bear  upon  it. 
Were  the  character  of  modern  science  rightly 
understood,  it  would  be  seen  that  the  very 


180  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

thing  which  gave  such  strength  and  sure- 
ness  to  all  her  conclusions,  was  that  humility 
of  spirit  which  belonged  to  her.  She  pro- 
mulgates all  that  is  positively  known,  hut 
she  maintains  the  strictest  silence  and  mod- 
esty ahout  all  that  is  unknown.  She  thank- 
fully accepts  of  evidence  wherever  it  can 
be  found;  nor  does  she  spurn  away  from 
her  the  very  humblest  contribution  of  such 
doctrine  as  can  be  witnessed  by  human  obser- 
vation, or  can  be  attested  by  human  verac- 
ity. But  with  all  this,  she  can  hold  out 
most  sternly  against  that  power  of  eloquence 
and  fancy  which  often  throws  so  bewitch- 
ing a  charm  over  the  plausibilities  of  ingen- 
ious speculation.  Truth  is  the  alone  idol 
of  her  reverence ;  and  did  she  at  all  times 
keep  by  her  attachments,  nor  throw  them 
away  when  theology  submitted  to  her  cog- 
nizance its  demonstrations  and  its  claims, 
we  should  not  despair  of  witnessing  as  great 
a  revolution  in  those  prevailing  habitudes  of 
thought  which  obtain  throughout  our  literary 
establishments  on  the  subject  of  Christianity, 
as  that  which  has  actually  taken  place  in 
the  philosophy  of  external  nature.  This  is 
the  first  field  on  which  have  been  success- 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  181 

fully  practised  the  experimental  lessons  of 
Bacon;  and  they  who  are  conversant  with 
these  matters  know  how  great  and  how 
general  a  uniformity  of  doctrine  now  prevails 
in  the  sciences  of  astronomy  and  mechanics 
and  chemistry,  and  almost  all  the  other 
departments  in  the  history  and  philosophy 
of  matter.  But  this  uniformity  stands  strik- 
ingly contrasted  with  the  diversity  of  our 
moral  systems,  with  the  restless  fluctuations 
both  of  language  and  of  sentiment  which  are 
taking  place  in  the  philosophy  of  mind,  with 
the  palpable  fact  that  every  new  course  of 
instruction  upon  this  subject  has  some  new 
articles,  or  some  new  explanations  to  pecul- 
iarize  it;  and  all  this  is  to  be  attributed, 
not  to  the  progress  of  the  science — not  to  a 
growing,  but  to  an  alternating  movement — 
not  to  its  perpetual  additions,  but  to  its  per- 
petual vibrations. 

I  mean  not  to  assert  the  futility  of  moral 
science,  or  to  deny  her  importance,  or  to 
insist  on  the  utter  hopelessness  of  her  ad- 
vancement. The  Baconian  method  will  not 
probably  push  forward  her  discoveries  with 
such  a  rapidity,  or  to  such  an  extent,  ^  as 
many  of  her  sanguine  disciples  have  antici- 


182  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

pated.  But  if  the  spirit  and  the  maxims  of 
this  philosophy  were  at  all  times  proceeded 
upon,  it  would  certainly  check  that  rashness 
and  variety  of  excogitation,  in  virtue  of  which 
it  may  almost  be  said,  that  every  new  course 
presents  us  with  a  new  system,  and  that 
every  new  teacher  has  some  singularity  or 
other  to  characterize  him.  She  may  be  able 
to  make  out  an  exact  transcript  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  mind,  and  in  so  doing  she  yields 
a  most  important  contribution  to  the  stock 
of  human  acquirements.  But  when  she  at- 
tempts to  grope  her  darkling  way  through 
the  counsels  of  the  Deity,  and  the  futurities 
of  his  administration  —  when,  without  one 
passing  acknowledgment  to  the  embassy 
which  professes  to  have  come  from  him,  or 
to  the  facts  and  to  the  testimonies  by  which 
it  has  so  illustriously  been  vindicated,  she 
launches  forth  her  own  speculations  on  the 
character  of  God,  and  the  destiny  of  man — 
when,  though  this  be  a  subject  on  which 
neither  the  recollections  of  history,  nor  the 
ephemeral  experience  of  any  single  life,  can 
furnish  one  observation  to  enlighten  her,  she 
will  nevertheless  utter  her  own  plausibilities, 
not  merely  with  a  contemptuous  neglect  of 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  183 

the  Bible,  but  in  direct  opposition  to  it — then 
it  is  high  time  to  remind  her  of  the  differ- 
ence between  the  reverie  of  him  who  has  not 
seen  God,  and  the  well-accredited  declaration 
of  Him  who  was  in  the  beginning1  with  God, 
and  was  Grod ;  and  to  tell  her  that  this,  so 
far  from  being  the  argument  of  an  ignoble 
fanaticism,  is  in  harmony  with  the  very  ar- 
gument upon  which  the  science  of  experi- 
ment has  been  reared,  and  by  which  it  has 
been  at  length  delivered  from  the  influence 
of  theory,  and  purified  of  all  its  vain  and 
visionary  splendors. 

In  my  last  discourses  I  have  attempted  to 
collect  from  the  records  of  G-od's  actual  com- 
munication to  the  world,  such  traces  of  rela- 
tionship between  other  orders  of  being  and 
the  great  family  of  mankind,  as  serve  to 
prove  that  Christianity  is  not  so  paltry  and 
provincial  a  system  as  Infidelity  presumes  it 
to  be.  And  as  I  said  before,  I  have  not  ex- 
hausted all  that  may  legitimately  be  derived 
upon  this  subject  from  the  informations  of 
Scripture.  I  have  adverted,  it  is  true,  to  the 
knowledge  of  our  moral  history,  which  ob- 
tains throughout  other  provinces  of  the  intel- 
ligent creation.  I  have  asserted  the  univei'- 


184  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

sal  importance  which  this  may  confer  on  the 
transactions  even  of  one  planet,  in  as  much 
as  it  may  spread  an  honorable  display  of  the 
Godhead  among  all  the  mansions  of  infinity. 
I  have  attempted  to  expatiate  on  the  argu- 
ment, that  an  event,  little  in  itself,  may  be 
so  pregnant  with  character  as  to  furnish  all 
the  worshippers  of  heaven  with  a  theme  of 
praise  for  eternity.  I  have  stated  that  noth- 
ing is  of  magnitude  in  their  eyes,  but  that 
which  serves  to  endear  to  them  the  Father 
of  their  spirits,  or  to  shed  a  lustre  over  the 
glory  of  his  incomprehensible  attributes ;  and 
that  thus,  from  the  redemption  even  of  our 
solitary  species,  there  may  go  forth  such,  an 
exhibition  of  the  Deity  as  shall  bear  the 
triumphs  of  his  name  to  the  very  outskirts 
of  the  universe. 

I  have  farther  adverted  to  another  distinct 
scriptural  intimation,  that  the  state  of  fallen 
man  was  not  only  matter  of  knowledge  to 
other  orders  of  creation,  but  was  also  matter 
of  deep  regret  and  affectionate  sympathy; 
that  agreeably  to  such  laws  of  sympathy  as 
are  most  familiar  even  to  human  observation, 
the  very  wretchedness  of  our  condition  was 
fitted  to  concentrate  upon  us  the  feelings 


ANGELIC   CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  185 

and  the  attentions  and  the  services  of  the 
celestial,  to  single  us  out  for  a  time  to  the 
gaze  of  their  most  earnest  and  unceasing  con- 
templation, to  draw  forth  all  that  was  kind 
and  all  that  was  tender  within  them,  and 
just  in  proportion  to  the  need  and  to  the  help- 
lessness of  us  miserable  exiles  from  the  fam- 
ily of  God,  to  multiply  upon  us  the  regards, 
and  call  out  in  our  behalf  the  fond  and  eager 
exertions  of  those  who  had  never  wandered 
away  from  him.  This  appears  from  the  Bible 
to  be  the  style  of  that  benevolence  which 
glows  and  which  circulates  around  the  throne 
of  heaven.  It  is  the  very  benevolence  which 
emanates  from  the  throne  itself,  and  the  at- 
tentions of  which  have  for  so  many  thousand 
years  signalized  the  inhabitants  of  our  world. 
This  may  look  a  long  period  for  so  paltry  a 
world.  But  how  have  Infidels  come  to  their 
conception  that  our  world  is  so  paltry  ?  By 
looking  abroad  over  the  countless  systems  of 
immensity.  But  why  then  have  they  missed 
the  conception,  that  the  time  of  those  pecul- 
iar visitations,  which  they  look  upon  as  so 
disproportionate  to  the  e  magnitude  of  this 
earth,  is  just  as  evanescent  as  the  earth  itself 
is  insignificant  ?  "Why  look  they  not  abroad 


186  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

on  the  countless  generations  of  eternity,  and 
thus  come  back  to  the  conclusion,  that,  after 
all,  the  redemption  of  our  species  is  but  an 
ephemeral  doing  in  the  history  of  an  intelli- 
gent nature — that  it  leaves  the  Author  of  it 
room  for  all  the  accomplishments  of  a  wise 
and  equal  administration;  and  not  to  men- 
tion that  even  during  the  progress  of  it,  it 
withdraws  not  a  single  thought  or  a  single 
energy  of  his  from  other  fields  of  creation, 
that  there  remains  time  enough  to  him  for 
carrying  round  the  visitations  of  as  striking 
and  as  peculiar  a  tenderness  over  the  whole 
extent  of  his  great  and  universal  monarchy  ? 
It  might  serve  still  further  to  incorporate 
the  concerns  of  our  planet  with  the  general 
history  of  moral  and  intelligent  beings,  to 
state,  not  merely  the  knowledge  which  they 
take  of  us,  and  not  merely  the  compassionate 
anxiety  which  they  feel  for  us,  but  to  state 
the  importance  derived  to  our  world  from  its 
being  the  actual  theatre  of  a  keen  and  am- 
bitious contest  among  the  upper  orders  of 
creation.  You  know  that  how,  for  the  pos- 
session of  a  very  small  and  insulated  terri- 
tory, the  mightiest  empires  of  the  world 
have  put  forth  all  their  resources;  and  on 


ANGELIC   CONTESTS   FOR  MAN.  187 

some  field  of  mustering  competition  have 
inonarchs  met,  and  embarked  for  victory 
all  the  pride  of  a  country's  talent,  and  all 
the  flower  and  strength  of  a  country's  pop- 
ulation. The  solitary  island  around  which 
so  many  fleets  are  hovering,  and  on  the 
shores  of  which  so  many  armed  men  are 
descending,  as  to  an  arena  of  hostility,  may 
well  wonder  at  its  own  unlooked-for  esti- 
mation. But  other  principles  are  animating 
the  hattle,  and  the  glory  of  nations  is  at 
stake,  and  a  much  higher  result  is  in  the 
contemplation  of  each  party,  than  the  gain 
of  so  humble  an  acquirement  as  the  primary 
object  of  the  war ;  and  honor,  dearer  to  many 
a  bosom  than  existence,  is  now  the  interest 
on  which  so  much  blood  and  so  much  treas- 
ure is  expended,  and  the  stirring  spirit  of 
emulation  has  now  got  hold  of  the  combat- 
ants ;  and  thus,  amid  all  the  insignificancy 
which  attaches  to  the  material  origin  of  the 
contest,  do  both  the  eagerness  and  the  ex- 
tent of  it  receive,  from  the  constitution  of 
our  nature,  their  most  full  and  adequate 
explanation. 

Now,  if  this  be  also  the  principle  of  higher 
natures — if,  on  the  one  hand,  God  be  jealous 


188  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

of  his  honor,  and  on  the  other,  there  he  proud 
and  exalted  spirits  who  scowl  defiance  at 
him  and  his  monarchy — if,  on  the  side  of 
heaven,  there  be  an  angelic  host  rallying 
around  the  standard  of  loyalty,  who  fly  with 
alacrity  at  the  bidding  of  the  Almighty,  who 
are  devoted  to  his  glory,  and  feel  a  rejoicing 
interest  in  the  evolution  of  his  counsels ; 
and  if,  on  the  side  of  hell,  there  be  a  sullen 
front  of  resistance,  a  hate  and  malice  inex- 
tinguishable, an  unequalled  daring  of  revenge 
to  baffle  the  wisdom  of  the  Eternal,  and  to 
arrest  the  hand  and  to  defeat  the  purposes  of 
Omnipotence — then  let  the  material  prize  of 
victory  be  insignificant  as  it  may,  it  is  the 
victory  in  itself  which  upholds  the  impulse  of 
this  keen  and  stimulated  rivalry.  If,  by  the 
sagacity  of  one  infernal  mind,  a  single  planet 
has  been  seduced  from  its  allegiance,  and 
been  brought  under  the  ascendency  of  him 
who  is  called  in  Scripture,  "the  god  of  this 
world,"  and  if  the  errand  on  which  our  Re- 
deemer came,  was  to  destroy  the  works  of 
the  devil,  then  let  this  planet  have  all  the 
littleness  which  astronomy  has  assigned  to 
it — call  it  what  it  is,  one  of  the  smaller  islets 
which  float  on  the  ocean  of  vacancy — it  has 


,  ANGELIC   CONTESTS  FOE,  MAN.  189 

become  the  theatre  of  such  a  competition  as 
may  have  all  the  desires  and  all  the  energies 
of  a  divided  universe  embarked  upon  it.  It 
involves  in  it  other  objects  than  the  single 
recovery  of  our  species.  It  decides  higher 
questions.  It  stands  linked  with  the  su- 
premacy of  God,  and  will  at  length  demon- 
strate the  way  in  which  he  inflicts  chastise- 
ment and  overthrow  upon  all  his  enemies.  I 
know  not  if  our  rebellious  world  be  the  only 
strong-hold  which  Satan  is  possessed  of,  or  if 
it  be  but  the  single  post  of  an  extended  war- 
fare, that  is  now  going  on  between  the  pow- 
ers of  light  and  of  darkness.  But  be  it  the 
one  or  the  other,  the  parties  are  in  array,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  contest  is  in  full  energy,  and 
the  honor  of  mighty  combatants  is  at  stake ; 
and  let  us  cease  to  wonder  that  our  humble 
residence  has  been  made  the  theatre  of  so 
busy  an  operation,  or  that  the  ambition  of 
loftier  natures  has  here  put  forth  all  its  de- 
sire and  all  its  strenuousness. 

This  unfolds  to  us  another  of  those  high 
and  extensive  bearings  which  the  moral  his- 
tory of  our  globe  may  have  on  the  system 
of  G-od's  universal  administration.  Were  an 
enemy  to  touch  the  shore  of  this  high-minded 


190  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

country,  and  to  occupy  so  much  as  one  of 
the  humhlest  of  its  villages,  and  there  to  se- 
duce the  natives  from  their  loyalty,  and  to  sit 
down  along  with  them  in  entrenched  defiance 
to  all  the  threats  and  to  all  the  preparations 
of  an  insulted  empire,  0,  how  would  the 
cry  of  wounded  pride  resound  throughout  all 
the  ranks  and  varieties  of  our  mighty  popula- 
tion ;  and  this  very  movement  of  indignancy 
would  reach  the  king  upon  his  throne,  and 
circulate  among  those  who  stood  in  all  the 
grandeur  of  chieftainship  around  him,  and  be 
heard  to  thrill  in  the  eloquence  of  parlia- 
ment, and  spread  so  resistless  an  appeal  to  a 
nation's  honor  and  a  nation's  patriotism,  that 
the  trumpet  of  war  would  summon  to  its  call 
all  the  spirit  and  all  the  willing  energies  of 
our  kingdom ;  and  rather  than  sit  down  in 
patient  endurance  under  the  burning  disgrace 
of  such  a  violation,  would  the  whole  of  its 
strength  and  resources  be  embarked  upon  the 
contest ;  and  never,  never  would  we  let  down 
our  exertions  and  our  sacrifices,  till  either  our 
deluded  countrymen  were  reclaimed,  or  till 
the  whole  of  this  offence  were,  by  one  righteous 
act  of  vengeance,  swept  away  altogether  from 
the  face  of  the  territory  it  deformed. 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  191 

The  Bible  is  always  most  full  and  most 
explanatory  on  those  points  of  revelation  in 
which  men  are  personally  interested.  But  it 
does  at  times  offer  a  dim  transparency, 
through  which  may  be  caught  a  partial  view 
of  such  designs  and  of  such  enterprises  as 
are  now  afloat  among  the  upper  orders  of  in- 
telligence. It  tells  us  of  a  mighty  struggle 
that  is  now  going  on  for  a  moral  ascendency 
over  the  hearts  of  this  world's  population. 
It  tells  us  that  our  race  were  seduced  from 
their  allegiance  to  God  by  the  plotting  sa- 
gacity of  one  who  stands  preeminen  tagainst 
him,  among  the  hosts  of  a  very  wide  and  ex- 
tended rebellion.  It  tells  us  of  the  Captain 
of  salvation,  who  undertook  to  spoil  him  of 
his  triumph;  and  throughout  the  whole  of 
that  magnificent  train  of  prophecy  which 
points  to  Him,  does  it  describe  the  work  he 
had  to  do,  as  a  conflict  in  which  strength 
was  to  be  put  forth,  and  painful  suffering  to 
be  endured,  and  fury  to  be  poured  upon  ene- 
mies, and  principalities  to  be  dethroned,  and 
all  those  toils  and  dangers  and  difficulties  to 
be  borne,  which  strowed  the  path  of  perse- 
verance that  was  to  carry  him  to  victory. 

But  it  is  a  contest  of  skill,  as  well  as  of 


192  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

strength  and  of  influence.  There  is  the  ear- 
nest competition  of  angelic  faculties  em- 
barked on  this  struggle  for  ascendency.  And 
while  in  the  Bible  there  is  recorded — faintly 
and  partially,  we  admit — the  deep  and  insid- 
ious policy  that  is  practised  on  the  one  side, 
we  are  also  told,  that  on  the  plan  of  our 
world's  restoration,  there  are  lavished  all  the 
riches  of  an  unsearchable  wisdom  upon  the 
other.  It  would  appear  that,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  purpose,  the  great  enemy  of 
God  and  of  man  plied  his  every  calculation, 
and  brought  all  the  devices  of  his  deep  and 
settled  malignity  to  bear  upon  our  species ; 
and  thought  that  could  he  involve  us  in  sin, 
every  attribute  of  the  Divinity  stood  staked  to 
the  banishment  of  our  race  from  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  empire  of  righteousness ;  and 
thus  did  he  practise  his  invasions  on  the 
moral  territory  of  the  unfallen,  and  glorying 
in  his  success,  did  he  fancy  and  feel  that  he 
had  achieved  a  permanent  separation  between 
the  Grod  who  sitteth  in  heaven,  and  one  at 
least  of  the  planetary  mansions  which  he 
had  reared. 

The  errand  of  the  Saviour  was  to  restore 
this  sinful  world,  and  have  its  people  read- 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOB,  MAN.  193 

mitted  within  the  circle  of  heaven's  pure 
and  righteous  family.  But  in  the  govern- 
ment of  heaven,  as  well  as  in  the  govern- 
ment of  earth,  there  are  certain  principles 
which  cannot  he  compromised,  and  certain 
maxims  of  administration  which  must  never 
be  departed  from,  and  a  certain  character  of 
majesty  and  of  truth  on  which  the  taint 
even  of  the  slightest  violation  can  never  be 
permitted,  and  a  certain  authority  which 
must  be  upheld  by  the  immutability  of  all 
its  sanctions,  and  the  unerring  fulfilment  of 
all  its  wise  and  righteous  proclamations.  All 
this  was  in  the  inind  of  the  archangel,  and  a 
gleam  of  malignant  joy  shot  athwart  him 
as  he  conceived  his  project  for  hemming  our 
unfortunate  species  within  the  bound  of  an 
irrecoverable  dilemma ;  and  as  surely  as  sin 
and  holiness  could  not  enter  into  fellowship, 
so  surely  did  he  think,  that  if  man  were  se- 
duced to  disobedience,  would  the  truth  and 
the  justice  and  the  immutability  of  God  lay 
their  insurmountable  barriers  on  the  path  of 
his  future  acceptance. 

It  was  only  in  that  plan  of  recovery  of 
which  Jesus  Christ  was  the  author  and  the 
finisher,  that  the  great  adversary  of  our  spe- 

Chr  Rer.  9 


194  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

cies  met  with  a  wisdom  which  overmatched 
him.  It  is  true,  that  he  had  reared,  in  the 
guilt  to  which  he  seduced  us,  a  mighty 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  this  lofty  undertaking. 
But  when  the  grand  expedient  was  an- 
nounced, and  the  blood  of  that  atonement 
by  which  sinners  are  brought  nigh,  was  will- 
ingly offered  to  be  shed  for  us,  and  the  eter- 
nal Son,  to  carry  this  mystery  into  accom- 
plishment, assumed  our  nature,  then  was 
the  prince  of  that  mighty  rebellion,  in  which 
the  fate  and  the  history  of  our  world  are  so 
deeply  implicated,  in  visible  alarm  for  the 
safety  of  all  his  acquisitions:  nor  can  the 
record  of  this  wondrous  history  carry  forward 
its  narrative,  without  furnishing  some  tran- 
sient glimpses  of  a  sublime  and  a  superior 
warfare,  in  which,  for  the  prize  of  a  spiritual 
dominion  over  our  species,  we  may  dimly  per- 
ceive the  contest  of  loftiest  talent,  and  all  the 
designs  of  heaven  in  behalf  of  man,  met  at 
every  point  of  their  evolution  by  the  coun- 
terworkings  of  a  rival  strength  and  a  rival 
sagacity.  . 

We  there  read  of  a  struggle  which  the 
Captain  of  our  salvation  had  to  sustain, 
when  the  lustre  of  the  Godhead  lay  obscured, 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  195 

and  the  strength  of  its  omnipotence  was  mys- 
teriously weighed  down  under  the  infirmities 
of  our  nature — how  Satan  singled  him  out, 
and  dared  him  to  the  combat  of  the  wilder- 
ness— how  all  his  wiles  and  all  his  influences 
were  resisted — how  he  left  our  Saviour  in 
all  the  triumphs  of  unsuhdued  loyalty — how 
the  progress  of  this  mighty  achievement  is 
marked  by  the  every  character  of  a  conflict — 
how  many  of  the  gospel  miracles  were  so 
many  direct  infringements  on  the  power  and 
empire  of  a  great  spiritual  rebellion — how  in 
one  precious  season  of  gladness,  among  the 
few  which  brightened  the  dark  career  of  our 
Saviour's  humiliation,  he  rejoiced  in  spirit, 
and  gave  as  the  cause  of  it  to  his  disciples, 
that  "  he  saw  Satan  fall  like  lightning  from 
heaven"  —  how  the  momentary  advantages 
that  were  gotten  over  him,  are  ascribed  to 
the  agency  of  this  infernal  being,  who  en- 
tered the  heart  of  Judas,  and  tempted  the 
disciple  to  betray  his  Master  and  his  Friend. 
I  know  that  I  am  treading  on  the  confines  of 
mystery.  I  cannot  tell  what  was  the  battle 
that  he  fought.  I  cannot  compute  the  terror 
or  the  strength  of  his  enemies.  I  cannot  say, 
for  I  have  not  been  told,  how  it  was  that  they 


196  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

stood  in  marshalled  and  hideous  array  against 
him:  nor  can  I  measure  how  great  the  firm 
daring  of  his  soul,  when  he  tasted  that  cup 
in  all  its  hittemess,  which  he  prayed  might 
pass  away  from  him ;  when,  with  the  feeling 
that  he  was  forsaken  by  his  G-od,  he  trod  the 
wine-press  alone;  when  he  entered  single- 
handed  upon  that  dreary  period  of  agony,  and 
insult,  and  death,  in  which,  from  the  garden 
to  the  cross,  he  had  to  hear  the  burden  of  a 
world's  atonement.  I  cannot  speak  in  my 
own  language,  but  I  can  say,  in  the  language 
of  the  Bible,  of  the  days  and  the  nights  of 
this  great  enterprise,  that  it  was  the  season  of 
the  travail  of  his  soul ;  that  it  was  the  hour 
and  the  power  of  darkness  ;  that  the  work  of 
our  redemption  was  a  work  accompanied  by 
the  effort,  and  the  violence,  and  the  fury  of 
a  combat — by  all  the  arduousness  of  a  battle 
in  its  progress,  and  all  the  glories  of  a  vic- 
tory in  its  termination;  and  after  he  called 
out  that  it  was  finished  —  after  he  was 
loosed  from  the  prison-house  of  the  grave — 
after  he  had  ascended  up  on  high — he  is  said 
to  have  made  captivity  captive;  and  to 
have  spoiled  principalities  and  powers ; 
and  to  have  seen  his  pleasure  upon  his  en- 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOB  MAN.  197 

emies,  and  to  have  made  a  show   of  them 
openly. 

I  will  not  affect  a  wisdom  ahove  that 
which  is  written,  by  fancying  such  details  of 
this  warfare  as  the  Bible  has  not  laid  before 
me.  But  surely  it  is  no  more  than  being  wise 
up  to  that  which  is  written,  to  assert,  that  in 
achieving  the  redemption  of  our  world  a  war- 
fare had  to  be  accomplished ;  that  upon  this 
subject  there  was,  among  the  higher  provinces 
of  creation,  the  keen  and  the  animated  con- 
flict of  opposing  interests ;  that  the  result  of  it 
involved  something  grander  and  more  affect- 
ing than  even  the  fate  of  this  world's  popula- 
tion; that  it  decided  a  question  of  rivalship 
between  the  righteous  and  everlasting  Mon- 
arch of  universal  being,  and  the  prince  of  a 
great  and  widely  extended  rebellion,  of  which 
I  neither  know  how  vast  is  the  magnitude 
nor  how  important  and  diversified  are  the 
bearings:  and  thus  do  we  gather,  from  this 
consideration,  another  distinct  argument,  help- 
ing us  to  explain  why,  on  the  salvation  of 
our  solitary  species,  so  much  attention  appears 
to  have  been  concentred,  and  so  much  energy 
appears  to  have  been  expended. 

But  it  would  appear,  from  the  records  of 


198  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOUESES. 

inspiration,  that  the  contest  is  not  yet  ended : 
that  on  the  one  hand  the  Spirit  of  God  is 
employed  in  making,  for  the  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, a  way  into  the  human  heart,  with  all 
the  power  of  an  effectual  demonstration ;  that 
on  the  other,  there  is  a  spirit  now  abroad, 
which  worketh  in  the  children  of  disobedi- 
ence: that  on  the  one  hand,  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  calling  men  out  of  darkness  into  the  mar- 
vellpus  light  of  the  gospel ;  and  that  on  the 
other  hand,  he  who  is  styled  the  god  of  this 
world,  is  blinding  their  hearts,  lest  the  light 
of  the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ  should  enter 
into  them :  that  they  who  are  under  the  do- 
minion of  the  one,  are  said  to  have  overcome, 
because  greater  is  he  that  is  in  them  than  he 
that  is  in  the  world ;  and  that  they  who  are 
under  the  dominion  of  the  other,  are  said  to 
be  the  children  of  the  devil,  and  to  be  under 
his  snare,  and  to  be  taken  captive  by  him  at 
his  will.  How  these  respective  powers  do 
operate,  is  one  question.  The  fact  of  their 
operation  is  another.  "We  abstain  from  the 
former.  We  attach  ourselves  to  the  latter, 
and  gather  from  it,  that  the  prince  of  dark- 
ness still  walketh  abroad  among  us ;  that  he 
is  still  working  his  insidious  policy,  if  not 


ANGELIC   CONTESTS   FOR  MAN.  199 

with  the  vigorous  inspiration  of  hope,  at  least 
with  the  fanatic  energies  of  despair;  that 
while  the  overtures  of  reconciliation  are  made 
to  circulate  through  the  world,  he  is  plying 
all  his  devices  to  deafen  and  to  extinguish 
the  impression  of  them;  or,  in  other  words, 
while  a  process  of  invitation  and  of  argument 
has  emanated  from  heaven,  for  reclaiming 
men  to  their  loyalty,  the  process  is  resisted  at 
all  its  points,  by  one  who  is  putting  forth  his 
every  expedient,  and  wielding  a  mysterious 
ascendency,  to  seduce  and  to  inthrall  them. 

To  an  infidel  ear,  all  this  carries  the 
sound  of  something  wild  and  visionary  along 
with  it.  But  though  only  known  through 
the  medium  of  revelation,  after  it  is  known, 
who  can  fail  to  recognize  its  harmony  with 
the  great  lineaments  of  human  experience  ? 
Who  has  not  felt  the  workings  of  a  rivalry 
within  him,  between  the  power  of  conscience 
and  the  power  of  temptation?  Who  does 
not  remember  those  seasons  of  retirement, 
when  the  calculations  of  eternity  had  gotten 
a  momentary  command  over  the  heart,  and 
time,  with  all  its  interests  and  all  its  vexa- 
tions, had  dwindled  into  insignificancy  before 
them?  And  who  does  not  remember  how, 


200  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

upon  his  actual  engagements  with  the  objects 
of  time,  they  resumed  a  control  as  great  and 
as  omnipotent  as  if  all  the  importance  of 
eternity  adhered  to  them — how  they  emitted 
from  them  such  an  impression  upon  his  feel- 
ings as  to  fix  and  to  fascinate  the  whole  man 
into  a  subserviency  to  their  influence — how, 
in  spite  of  every  lesson  of  their  worthlessness, 
brought  home  to  him  at  every  turn  by  the 
rapidity  of  the  seasons,  and  the  vicissitudes 
of  life,  and  the  ever-moving  progress  of  his 
own  earthly  career,  and  the  visible  ravages 
of  death  among  his  acquaintances  around 
him,  and  the  desolations  of  his  family,  and 
the  constant  breaking  up  of  his  system  of 
friendships,  and  the  affecting  spectacle  of  all 
that  lives  and  is  in  motion  withering  and 
hastening  to  the  grave — O,  how  comes  it, 
that  in  the  face  of  all  this  experience,  the 
whole  elevation  of  purpose  conceived  in  the 
hour  of  his  better  understanding,  should  be 
dissipated  and  forgotten  ?  Whence  the  might 
and  whence  the  mystery  of  that  spell  which 
so  binds  and  so  infatuates  us  to  the  world  ? 
What  prompts  us  so  to  embark  the  whole 
strength  of  our  eagerness  and  of  our  desires  in 
pursuit  of  interests  which  w'e  know  a  few  little 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  201 

years  will  bring  to  utter  annihilation  ?  Who 
is  it  that  imparts  to  them  all  the  charm  and 
all  the  color  of  an  unfading  durability? 
Who  is  it  that  throws  such  an  air  of  stability 
over  these  earthly  tabernacles,  as  makes 
them  look,  to  the  fascinated  eye  of  man,  like 
resting-places  for  all  eternity?  Who  is  it 
that  so  pictures  out  the  objects  of  sense,  and 
so  magnifies  the  range  of  their  future  enjoy- 
ment, and  so  dazzles  the  fond  and  deceived 
imagination,  that  in  looking  onward  through 
our  earthly  career,  it  appears  like  the  vista, 
or  the  perspective  of  innumerable  ages  ?  He 
who  is  called  the  god  of  this  world.  He 
who  can  dress  the  idleness  of  its  waking 
dreams  in  the  garb  of  reality.  He  who  can 
pour  a  seducing  brilliancy  over  the  panorama 
of  its  fleeting  pleasures  and  its  vain  anticipa- 
tions. He  who  can  turn  it  into  an  instru- 
ment of  deceitfulness,  and  make  it  wield 
such  an  absolute  ascendency  over  all  the 
affections,  that  man,  become  the  poor  slave 
of  its  idolatries  and  its  charms,  puts  the  au- 
thority of  conscience,  and  the  warnings  ol 
the  word  of  God,  and  the  offered  instigations 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  all  the  lessons  of 
calculation,  and  all  the  wisdom  even  of  his 

9* 


202  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

own  sound  and  sober  experience,  away  from 
him. 

But  this  wondrous  contest  will  corne  to  a 
close.  Some  will  return  to  their  loyalty,  and 
others  will  keep  by  their  rebellion;  and,  in 
the  day  of  the  winding  up  of  the  drama  of 
this  world's  history,  there  will  be  made  mani- 
fest to  the  myriads  of  the  various  orders  of 
creation,  both  the  mercy  and  vindicated  maj- 
esty of  the  Eternal.  Oh,  on  that  day,  how 
vain  will  this  presumption  of  the  infidel 
astronomy  appear,  when  the  affairs  of  men 
come  to  be  examined  in  the  presence  of  an 
innumerable  company,  and  beings  of  loftiest 
nature  are  seen  to  crowd  around  the  judg- 
ment-seat; and  the  Saviour  shall  appear  in 
our  sky  with  a  celestial  retinue,  who  have 
come  with  him  from  afar  to  witness  all  his 
doings,  and  to  take  a  deep  and  solemn  inter- 
est in  all  his  dispensations ;  and  the  destiny 
of  our  species,  whom  the  infidel  would  thus 
detach,  in  solitary  insignificance,  from  the 
universe  altogether,  shall  be  found  to  merge 
and  to  mingle  with  higher  destinies :  the 
good  to  spend  their  eternity  with  angels  ;  the 
bad  to  spend  their  eternity  with  evil  angels — 
the  former  to  be  readmitted  into  the  univer- 


ANGELIC  CONTESTS  FOR  MAN.  203 

sal  family  of  God's  obedient  worshippers ;  the 
latter  to  share  in  the  everlasting  pain  and 
ignominy  of  the  defeated  hosts  of  the  rebel- 
lious— the  people  of  this  planet  to  be  impli- 
cated, throughout  the  whole  train  of  their 
never-ending  history,  with  the  higher  ranks 
and  the  more  extended  tribes  of  intelligence. 
And  thus  it  is,  that  the  special  administration 
we  now  live  under  shall  be  seen  to  harmonize 
in  its  bearings,  and  to  accord  in  its  magnifi- 
cence, with  all  that  extent  of  nature  and  of 
her  territories  which  modern  science  has  un- 
folded. 


204  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES 


DISCOURSE    VII. 

ON  THE  SLENDER  INFLUENCE  OF  MERE  TASTE  AND 
SENSIBILITY  IN  MATTERS  OF  RELIGION. 

"And  lo,  them  art  unto  them  as  a  very  lovely  song  of  one 
that  hath  a  pleasant  voice,  and  can  play  well  on  an  instrument : 
for  they  hear  thy  words,  but  they  do  them  not.— EZEK.  33 :  32. 

You  easily  understand  how  a  taste  for 
music  is  one  thing,  and  a  real  submission  to 
the  influence  of  religion  is  another — how  the 
ear  may  be  regaled  by  the  melody  of  sound, 
and  the  heart  may  utterly  refuse  the  proper 
impression  of  the  sense  that  is  conveyed  by 
it — how  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  world 
may,  with  their  every  affection  devoted  to  its 
perishable  vanities,  inhale  all  the  delights 
of  enthusiasm,  as  they  sit  in  crowded  assem- 
blage around  the  deep  and  solemn  oratorio; 
aye,  and  whether  it  be  the  humility  of  pen- 
itential feeling,  or  the  rapture  of  grateful 
acknowledgment,  or  the  sublime  of  a  con- 
templative piety,  or  the  aspiration  of  pure 
and  of  holy  purposes,  which  breathes  through- 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE  TASTE.  205 

out  the  words  of  the  performance,  and  gives 
to  it  all  the  spirit  and  all  the  expression  by 
which  it  is  pervaded,  it  is  a  very  possible 
thing  that  the  moral  and  the  rational  and 
the  active  man  may  have  given  no  entrance 
into  his  bosom  for  any  of  these  sentiments  ; 
and  yet  so  overpowered  may  he  be  by  the 
charm  of  the  vocal  conveyance  through  which 
they  are  addressed  to  him,  that  he  may  be 
made  to  feel  with  such  an  emotion,  and  to 
weep  with  such  a  tenderness,  and  to  kindle 
with  such  a  transport,  and  to  glow  with  such 
an  elevation,  as  may  one  and  all  carry  upon 
them  the  semblance  of  sacredness. 

But  might  not  this  semblance  deceive 
him?  Have  you  never  heard  any  tell,  and 
with  complacency  too,  how  powerfully  his  de- 
votion was  awakened  by  an  act  of  attendance 
on  the  oratorio — how  his  heart,  melted  and 
subdued  by  the  influence  of  harmony,  did 
homage  to  all  the  religion  of  which  it  was 
the  vehicle — how  he  was  so  moved  and  over- 
borne that  he  had  to  shed  the  tears  of  contri- 
tion, and  to  be  agitated  by  the  terrors  of 
judgment,  and  to  receive  an  awe  upon  his 
spirit  of  the  greatness  and  the  majesty  of 
G-od ;  and  that,  wrought  up  to  the  lofty  pitch 


206  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

of  eternity,  he  could  look  down  upon  the 
world,  and  by  the  glance  of  one  commanding 
survey,  pronounce  upon  the  littleness  and  the 
vanity  of  all  its  concerns?  0,  it  is  very, 
very  possible  that  all  this  might  thrill  upon 
the  ears  of  the  man,  and  circulate  a  succession 
of  solemn  and  affecting  images  around  his 
fancy ;  and  yet,  that  essential  principle  of  his 
nature  upon  which  the  practical  influence  of 
Christianity  turns,  might  have  met  with  no 
reaching  and  no  subduing  efficacy  whatever 
to  arouse  it.  He  leaves  the  exhibition  as 
dead  in  trespasses  and  sins  as  he  came  to  it. 
Conscience  has  not  wakened  upon  him.  Re- 
pentance has  not  turned  him.  Faith  has 
not  made  any  positive  lodgment  within  him 
of  her  great  and  her  constraining  realities. 
He  speeds  him  back  to  his  business  and  to 
his  family,  and  there  he  plays  off  the  old 
man  in  all  the  entireness  of  his  uncrucified 
temper,  and  of  his  obstinate  worldliness,  and 
of  all  those  earthly  and  unsatisfied  affections 
which  are  found  to  cleave  to  him  with  as 
great  tenacity  as  ever.  He  is  really  and  ex- 
perimentally the  very  same  man  as  before,  and 
all  those  sensibilities  which  seemed  to  bear 
upon  them  so  much  of  the  air  and  unction 


FUTILITY  OF   MERE   TASTE.  207 

of  heaven,  are  found  to  go  into  dissipation, 
and  be  forgotten  with  the  loveliness  of  the 


Amid  all  that  illusion  which  such  mo- 
mentary visitations  of  seriousness  and  of  sen- 
timent throw  around  the  character  of  man, 
let  us  never  lose  sight  of  the  test,  that  "  by 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  It  is  not 
coming  up  to  this  test,  that  you  hear  and  are 
delighted.  It  is  that  you  hear  and  do.  This 
is  the  ground  upon  which  the  reality  of  your 
religion  is  discriminated  now ;  and  on  the  day 
of  reckoning,  this  is  the  ground  upon  which 
your  religion  will  be  judged  then,  and  that 
award  is  to  be  passed  upon  you  which  will 
fix  and  perpetuate  your  destiny  for  ever.  You 
have  a  taste  for  music.  This  no  more  im- 
plies the  hold  and  the  ascendency  of  religion 
over  you,  than  that  you  have  a  taste  for  beau- 
tiful scenery,  or  a  taste  for  painting,  or  even 
a  taste  for  the  sensualities  of  epicurism. 
But  music  may  be  made  to  express  the  glow 
and  the  movement  of  devotional  feeling ;  and 
is  it  saying  nothing,  to  say  that  the  heart  of 
him  who  listens  with  a  raptured  ear,  is, 
through  the  whole  time  of  the  performance, 
in  harmony  with  such  a  movement?  Why, 


208      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

it  is  saying  nothing  to  the  purpose.  Music 
may  lift  the  inspiring  note  of  patriotism,  and 
the  inspiration  may  be  felt,  and  it  may  thrill 
over  the  recesses  of  the  soul,  to  the  mustering 
up  of  all  its  energies ;  and  it  may  sustain  to 
the  last  cadence  of  the  song,  the  firm  nerve 
and  purpose  of  intrepidity ;  and  all  this  may 
he  realized  upon  him  who,  in  the  day  of  hat- 
tie,  and  upon  actual  collision  with  the  dan- 
gers of  it,  turns  out  to  he  a  coward.  And 
music  may  lull  the  feelings  into  unison  with 
piety,  and  stir  up  the  inner  man  to  lofty 
determinations,  and  so  engage  for  a  time  his 
affections,  that,  as  if  weaned  from  the  dust, 
they  promise  an  immediate  entrance  on  some 
great  and  elevated  career  which  may  carry 
him  through  his  pilgrimage  superior  to  all 
the  sordid  and  grovelling  enticements  that 
abound  in  it.  But  he  turns  him  to  the 
world,  and  all  this  glow  abandons  him,  and 
the  words  which  he  hath  heard  he  doeth 
them  not,  and  in  the  hour  of  temptation  he 
turns  out  to  be  a  deserter  from  the  law  of 
allegiance ;  and  the  test  I  have  now  specified 
looks  hard  upon  him,  and  discriminates  him 
amid  all  the  parading  insignificance  of  his 
fine  but  fugitive  emotions,  to  be  the  subject 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE    TASTE.  209 

both   of  present    guilt    and    of    future   ven- 
geance. 

The  faithful  application  of  this  test  would 
put  to  flight  a  host  of  other  delusions.  It 
may  he  carried  round  among  all  those  phe- 
nomena of  human  character,  where  there  is 
the  exhibition  of  something  associated  with 
religion,  but  which  is  not  religion  itself.  An 
exquisite  relish  for  music  is  no  test  of  the 
influence  of  Christianity.  Neither  are  many 
other  of  the  exquisite  sensibilities  of  our  na- 
ture. When  a  kind  mother  closes  the  eyes 
of  her  expiring  babe,  she  is  thrown  into  a 
flood  of  sensibility,  and  soothing  to  her  heart 
are  the  sympathy  and  the  prayers  of  an  at- 
tending minister.  When  a  gathering  neigh- 
borhood assemble  to  the  funeral  of  an  ac- 
quaintance, one  pervading  sense  of  regret  and 
tenderness  sits  on  the  faces  of  the  company, 
and  the  deep  silence,  broken  only  by  the 
solemn  utterance  of  the  man  of  Grod,  carries 
a  kind  of  pleasing  religiousness  along  with 
it.  The  sacredness  of  the  hallowed  day, 
and  all  the  decencies  of  its  observation, 
may  engage  the  affections  of  him  who  loves 
to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  his  father,  and 
every  recurring  Sabbath  may  bring  to  his 


210  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

bosom  the  charm  of  its  regularity  and  its 
quietness.  Religion  has  its  accompaniments, 
and  in  these  there  may  be  a  something  to 
soothe  and  to  fascinate,  even  in  the  absence 
of  the  appropriate  influences  of  religion. 
The  deep  and  tender  impression  of  a  family 
bereavement  is  not  religion.  The  love  of 
established  decencies  is  not  religion.  The 
charm  of  all  that  sentimentalism  which  is 
associated  with  many  of  its  solemn  and 
affecting  services,  is  not  religion.  They  may 
form  the  distinct  folds  of  its  accustomed  dra- 
pery, but  they  do  not,  any  or  all  of  them  put 
together,  make  up  the  substance  of  the  thing 
itself.  A  mother's  tenderness  may  flow  most 
gracefully  over  the  tomb  of  her  departed 
little  one,  and  she  may  talk  the  while  of 
that  heaven  whither  its  spirit  has  ascended. 
The  man  whom  death  hath  widowed  of  his 
friend,  may  abandon  himself  to  the  move- 
ments of  that  grief  which  for  a  time  will 
claim  an  ascendency  over  him,  and  among 
the  multitude  of  his  other  reveries,  may  love 
to  hear  of  the  eternity  where  sorrow  and  sep- 
aration are  alike  unknown.  He  who  has 
been  trained  from  his  infant  days  to  remem- 
ber the  Sabbath,  may  love  the  holiness  of  its 


FUTILITY   OF   MERE   TASTE.  211 

aspect,  and  associate  himself  with  all  its  ob- 
servances, and  take  a  delighted  share  in  the 
mechanism  of  its  forms.  But  let  not  these 
think,  because  the  tastes  and  the  sensibilities 
which  engross  them  may  be  blended  with 
religion,  that  they  indicate  either  its  strength 
or  its  existence  within  them.  I  recur  to  the 
test.  I  press  its  imperious  exactions  upon 
you.  I  call  for  fruit,  and  demand  the  perma- 
nency of  a  religious  influence  on  the  habits 
and  the  history.  0,  how  many  take  a  flat- 
tering unction  to  their  souls  when  they 
think  of  their  amiable  feelings  and  their 
becoming  observations,  with  whom  this  se- 
vere touchstone  would,  like  the  head  of  Me- 
dusa, put  to  flight  all  their  complacency. 
The  afflictive  dispensation  is  forgotten,  and 
he  on  whom  it  was  laid  is  practically  as 
indifferent  to  God  and  to  eternity  as  before. 
The  Sabbath  services  come  to  a  close,  and 
they  are  followed  by  the  same  routine  of 
week-day  worldliness  as  before.  In  neither 
the  one  case  nor  the  other  do  we  see  more  of 
the  radical  influence  of  Christianity,  than  in 
the  sublime  and  melting  influence  of  sacred 
music  upon  the  soul;  and  all  this  tide  of 
emotion  is  found  to  die  away  from  the 


212  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

bosom  like  the  pathos  or  like  the  loveliness 
of  a  song. 

The  instances  may  be  multiplied  without 
number.  A  man  may  have  a  taste  for  elo- 
quence ;  and  eloquence,  the  most  touching  or 
sublime,  may  lift  her  pleading  voice  on  the 
side  of  religion.  A  man  may  love  to  have 
his  understanding  stimulated  by  the  ingenui- 
ties or  the  resistless  urgencies  of  an  argu- 
ment; and  argument  the  most  profound 
and  the  most  overbearing  may  put  forth  all 
the  might  of  a  constraining  vehemence  in 
behalf  of  religion.  A  man  may  feel  the  re- 
joicings of  a  conscious  elevation  when  some 
ideal  scene  of  magnificence  is  laid  before 
him ;  and  where  are  these  scenes  so  readily 
to  be  met  with,  as  when  led  to  expatiate 
in  thought  over  the  track  of  eternity,  or  to 
survey  the  wonders  of  creation,  or  to  look  to 
the  magnitude  of  those  great  and  universal 
interests  which  lie  within  the  compass  of  re- 
ligion. A  man  may  have  his  attention  riv- 
eted and  regaled  by  that  power  of  imitative 
description  wl^ich  brings  all  the  recollections 
of  his  own  experience  before  him  —  which 
presents  him  with  a  faithful  analysis  of  his 
own  heart — which  embodies  in  language  such 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE   TASTE.  213 

intimacies  of  observation  and  of  feeling  as 
have  often  passed  before  his  eyes,  or  played 
within  his  bosom,  but  had  never  been  so  truly 
or  so  ably  pictured  to  the  view  of  his  remem- 
brance. Now,  all  this  may  be  done  in  the 
work  of  pressing  the  duties  of  religion — in 
the  work  of  instancing  the  applications  of 
religion — in  the  work  of  pointing  those  allu- 
sions to  life  and  to  manners  which  manifest 
the  truth  to  the  conscience,  and  plant  such  a 
conviction  of  sin  as  forms  the  very  basis  of  a 
sinner's  religion.  Now,  in  all  these  cases,  I 
see  other  principles  brought  into  action,  and 
which  may  be  in  a  state  of  most  lively  and 
vigorous  movement,  and  be  yet  in  a  state  of 
entire  separation  from  the  principle  of  re- 
ligion. I  will  make  bold  to  say,  on  the 
strength  of  these  illustrations,  that  as  much 
delight  may  emanate  from  the  pulpit  on  an 
arrested  audience  beneath  it,  as  ever  emanat- 
ed from  the  boards  of  a  theatre  —  aye,  and 
with  as  total  a  disjunction  of  mind  too,  in 
the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  from  the  es- 
sence or  the  habit  of  religion.  I  recur  to  the 
test.  I  make  my  appeal  to  experience,  and  I 
put  it  to  you  all,  whether  your  finding  upon 
the  subject  do  not  agree  with  my  saying 


214  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

about  it,  that  a  man  may  weep,  and  admire, 
and  have  many  of  his  faculties  put  upon  the 
stretch  of  their  most  intense  gratification — 
his  judgment  established,  and  his  fancy  enli- 
vened, and  his  feelings  overpowered,  and  his 
hearing  charmed  as  by  the  accents  of  heav- 
enly persuasion,  and  all  within  him  feasted 
by  the  rich  and  varied  luxuries  of  an  intel- 
lectual banquet — 0,  it  is  cruel  to  frown  un- 
mannerly in  the  midst  of  so  much  satisfac- 
tion. But  I  must  not  forget  that  truth  has 
her  authority  as  well  as  her  sternness ;  and 
she  forces  me  to  affirm,  that  after  all  this  has 
been  felt  and  gone  through,  there  might  not 
be  one  principle  which  lies  at  the  turning- 
point  of  conversion,  that  has  experienced  a 
single  movement — not  one  of  its  purposes 
be  conceived — not  one  of  its  doings  be  accom- 
plished— not  one  step  of  that  repentance 
which  if  we  have  not,  we  perish,  so  much  as 
entered  upon — not  one  announcement  of  that 
faith  by  which  we  are  saved,  admitted  into  a 
real  and  actual  possession  by  the  inner  man. 
He  has  had  his  hour's  entertainment,  and 
willingly  does  he  award  this  homage  to  the 
performer,  that  he  hath  a  pleasant  voice  and 
can  play  well  on  an  instrument ;  but  in  an- 


FUTILITY   OF  MERE   TASTE.  215 

other  hour  it  fleets  away  from  his  remem- 
brance, and  goes  all  to  nothing,  like  the  love- 
liness of  a  song. 

Now,  in  bringing  these  Astronomical  Dis- 
courses to  a  close,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  advert 
to  this  exhibition  of  character  in  man.  The 
sublime  and  interesting  topic  which  has 
engaged  us,  however  feebly  it  may  have 
been  handled — however  inadequately  it  may 
have  been  put  in  all  its  worth  and  all  its 
magnitude  before  you  —  however  short  the 
representation  of  the  speaker  or  the  concep- 
tion of  the  hearers  may  have  been  of  that 
richness,  and  that  greatness,  and  that  lofti- 
ness which  belong  to  it  —  possesses  in  itself 
a  charm  to  fix  the  attention,  and  to  regale 
the  imagination,  and  to  subdue  the  whole 
man  into  a  delighted  reverence ;  and,  in  a 
word,  to  beget  such  a  solemnity  of  thought 
and  of  emotion,  as  may  occupy  and  enlarge 
the  soul  for  hours  together — as  may  waft  it 
away  from  the  grossness  of  ordinary  life,  and 
raise  it  to  a  kind  of  elevated  calm  above  all 
its  vulgarities  and  all  its  vexations. 

Now,  tell  me  whether  the  whole  of  this 
effect  upon  the  feelings  may  not  be  formed 
without  the  presence  of  religion.  Tell  me 


216  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

whether  there  might  not  be  such  a  constitu- 
tion of  mind,  that  it  may  both  want  alto- 
gether that  principle  in  virtue  of  which  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  are  admitted  into 
the  belief,  and  the  duties  of  Christianity  are 
admitted  into  a  government  over  the  practice ; 
and  yet,  at  the  very  same  time,  it  may  have 
the  faculty  of  looking  abroad  over  some  scene 
of  magnificence,  and  of  being  wrought  up  to 
ecstasy  with  the  sense  of  all  those  glories 
among  which  it  is  expatiating.  I  want  you 
to  see  clearly  the  distinction  between  these 
two  attributes  of  the  human  character. 
They  are,  in  truth,  as  different  the  one  from 
the  other,  as  a  taste  for  the  grand  and  the 
graceful  of  scenery  differs  from  the  appetite 
of  hunger;  and  the  one  may  both  exist  and 
have  a  most  intense  operation  within  the 
bosom  of  that  very  individual  who  entirely 
disowns  and  is  entirely  disgusted  with 
the  other.  What,  must  a  man  be  con- 
verted, ere  from  the  most  elevated  peak 
of  some  Alpine  wilderness  he  become  ca- 
pable of  feeling  the  force  and  the  majesty 
of  those  great  lineaments  which  the  hand  of 
nature  has  thrown  around  him  in  the  Araried 
forms  of  precipice,  and  mountain,  and  the 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE   TASTE.  217 

wave  of  mighty  forests,  and  the  rush  of 
sounding  waterfalls,  and  distant  glimpses  of 
human  territory,  and  pinnacles  of  everlasting 
snow,  and  the  sweep  of  that  circling  hori- 
zon which  folds  in  its  ample  embrace  the 
whole  of  this  nohle  amphitheatre  ?  Tell  me 
whether,  without  the  aid  of  Christianity,  or 
without  a  particle  of  reverence  for  the  only 
name  given  under  heaven  whereby  men  can 
be  saved,  a  man  may  not  kindle  at  such  a 
perspective  as  this,  into  all  the  raptures  and 
into  all  the  movements  of  a  poetic  elevation, 
and  be  able  to  render  into  the  language  of 
poetry  the  whole  of  that  sublime  and  beau- 
teous imagery  which  adorns  it;  aye,  and  as 
if  he  were  treading  on  the  confines  of  a 
sanctuary  which  he  has  not  entered,  may  he 
not  mix  up  with^the  power  and  the  en- 
chantment of  his  description,  such  allusions 
to  the  presiding  genius  of  the  scene,  or  to  the 
still  but  animating  spirit  of  the  solitude,  or 
to  the  speaking  silence  of  some  mysterious 
character  which  reigns  throughout  the  land- 
scape, or,  in  fine,  to  that  eternal  Spirit  who 
sits  behind  the  elements  he  has  formed,  and 
combines  them  into  all  the  varieties  of  a  wide 
and  a  wondrous  creation :  might  not  all  this 

Chr.  ROT.  10 


218  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

be  said  and  sung  with  an  emphasis  so  mov- 
ing as  to  spread  the  coloring  of  piety  over 
the  pages  of  him  who  performs  thus  well 
upon  his  instrument,  and  yet  the  performer 
himself  have  a  conscience  unmoved  by  a 
single  warning  of  Grod's  actual  communica- 
tion, and  the  judgment  unconvinced,  and  the 
fears  unawakened,  and  the  life  unreformed 
by  it? 

Now,  what  is  true  of  a  scene  on  earth,  is 
also  true  of  that  wider  and  more  elevated 
scene  which  stretches  over  the  immensity 
around  it  into  a  dark  and  a  distant  unknown. 
Who  does  not  feel  an  aggrandizement  of 
thought  and  of  faculty,  when  he  looks 
abroad  over  the  amplitudes  of  .creation  — 
when,  placed  on  a  telescopic  eminence,  his 
eye  can  find  a  path\^^  to  innumerable, 
worlds  —  when  that  wondrous  field  ovei 
which  there  had  hung  for  many  ages  the 
mantle  of  so  deep  an  obscurity,  is  laid  open 
to  him,  and  instead  of  a  dreary  and  unpeo- 
pled solitude,  he  can  see  over  the  whole  face 
of  it  such  an  extended  garniture  of  rich  and 
goodly  habitations.  Even  the  Atheist,  who 
tells  us  that  the  universe  is  self-existent  and 
indestructible  —  even  he,  who  instead  of  see- 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE  TASTE.  219 

ing  the  traces  of  a  manifold  wisdom  in  its 
manifold  varieties,  sees  nothing  in  them  all 
but  the  exquisite  structures  and  the  lofty 
dimensions  of  materialism  —  even  he  who 
would  despoil  creation  of  its  God,  cannot 
look  upon  its  golden  suns  and  their  accom- 
panying systems,  without  the  solemn  impres- 
sion of  a  magnificence  that  fixes  and  over- 
powers him.  Now,  conceive  such  a  belief 
of  G-od  as  you  all  profess,  to  dawn  upon  his 
understanding.  Let  him  become  as  one  of 
yourselves,  and  so  be  put  into  the  condition 
of  rising  from  the  sublime  of  matter  to  the 
sublime  of  mind.  Let  him  now  learn  to 
subordinate  the  whole  of  this  mechanism  to 
the  design  and  authority  of  a  great  presiding 
Intelligence,  and  reassembling  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  universe,  however  distant,  into 
one  family,  let  him  mingle  with  his  former 
conceptions  of  the  grandeur  which  belonged 
to  it,  the  conception  of  that  eternal  Spirit 
who  sits  enthroned  on  the  immensity  of  his 
own  wonders,  and  embraces  all  that  he  has 
made  within  the  ample  scope  of  one  great 
administration.  Then  will  the  images  and 
the  impressions  of  sublimity  come  in  upon 
him  from  a  new  quarter.  Then  will  another 


220  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

avenue  be  opened,  through  which  a  sense  of 
grandeur  may  find  its  way  into  his  soul,  and 
have  a  mightier  influence  than  ever  to  fill, 
and  to  elevate,  and  to  expand  it.  Then  will 
be  established  a  new  and  a  noble  associa- 
tion, by  the  aid  of  which  all  that  he  for- 
merly looked  upon  as  fair  becomes  more 
lovely,  and  all  that  he  formerly  looked  upon 
as  great  becomes  more  magnificent.  But 
will  you  believe  me,  that  even  with  this  ac- 
cession to  his  mind  of  ideas  gathered  from 
the  contemplation  of  the  Divinity  —  even 
with  that  pleasurable  glow  which  steals  over 
his  imagination  when  he  now  thinks  him  of 
the  majesty  of  Grod — even  with  as  much  of 
what  you  would  call  piety,  as,  I  fear,  is  enough 
to  soothe  and  to  satisfy  many  of  yourselves, 
and  which  stirs  and  kindles  within  you  when 
you  hear  the  goings  forth  of  the  Supreme  set 
before  you  in  the  terms  of  a  lofty  representa- 
tion— even  with  all  this,  I  say,  there  may  be 
as  wide  a  distance  from  the  habit  and  the 
character  of  godliness,  as  if  God  was  still 
atheistically  disowned  by  him.  Take  the 
conduct  of  his  life  and  the  currency  of  his 
affections,  and  you  may  see  as  little  upon 
them  of  the  stamp  of  loyalty  to  God,  or  of 


FUTILITY   OF  MERE    TASTE.  221 

reverence  for  any  one  of  his  authenticated 
proclamations,  as  you  may  see  in  him  who 
offers  his  poetic  incense  to  the  genii,  or  weeps 
enraptured  over  the  visions  of  a  heauteous 
mythology.  The  sublime  of  Deity  has 
wrought  up  his  soul  to  a  pitch  of  conscious 
and  pleasing  elevation — and  yet  this  no 
more  argues  -the  will  of  Deity  to  have  a  prac- 
tical authority  over  him,  than  does  that  tone 
of  elevation  which  is  caught  by  looking  at 
the  sublime  of  a  naked  materialism.  The 
one  and  the  other  have  their  little  hour  of 
ascendency  over  him,  and  when  he  turns 
him  to  the  rude  and  ordinary  world,  both 
vanish  alike  from  his  sensibilities,  as  does 
the  loveliness  of  a  song. 

To  kindle  and  be  elevated  by  a  sense  of 
the  majesty  of  God,  is  one  thing.  It  is  to- 
tally another  thing  to  feel  a  movement  of 
obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  under  the  im- 
pression of  his  rightful  authority  over  all  the 
creatures  whom  he  has  formed.  A  man  may 
have  an  imagination  all  alive  to  the  former, 
while  the  latter  never  prompts  him  to  one 
act  of  obedience — never  leads  him  to  com- 
pare his  life  with  the  requirements  of  the 
Lawgiver  —  never  carries  him  from  such  a 


222  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

scrutiny  as  this,  to  the  conviction  of  sin — 
never  whispers  such  an  accusation  to  the 
ear  of  his  conscience,  as  causes  him  to 
mourn  and  to  he  in  heaviness  for  the  guilt 
of  his  hourly  and  habitual  rebellion — never 
shuts  him  up  to  the  conclusion  of  the  need 
of  a  Saviour — never  humbles  him  to  acqui- 
escence in  the  doctrine  of  that  revelation 
which  comes  to  his  door  with  such  a  host  of 
evidence  as  even  his  own  philosophy  cannot 
bid  away — never  extorts  a  single  believing 
prayer  in  the  name  of  Christ,  or  points  a 
single  look,  either  of  trust  or  of  reverence,  to 
his  atonement  —  never  stirs  any  effective 
movement  of  conversion,  never  sends  an 
aspiring  energy  into  his  bosom  after  the  aids 
of  that  Spirit  who  alone  can  waken  him  out 
of  his  lethargies,  and  by  the  anointing  which 
remaineth,  can  rivet  and  substantiate  in  his 
practice  those  goodly  emotions  which  have 
hitherto  plied  him  with  the  deceitfulness  of 
their  momentary  visits,  and  then  capriciously 
abandoned  him. 

The  mere  majesty  of  God's  power  and 
greatness,  when  offered  to  your  notice,  lays 
hold  of  one  of  the  faculties  within  you. 
The  holiness  of  God,  with  his  righteous 


FUTILITY   OF  HERE   TASTE.  223 

claim  of  legislation,  lays  hold  of  another  of 
these  faculties.  The  difference  between 
them  is  so  great  that  the  one  may  be  en- 
grossed and  interested  to  the  full,  while  the 
other  remains  untouched,  and  in  a  state  of 
entire  dormancy.  Now,  it  is  no  matter  what 
it  be  that  ministers  delight  to  the  former  of 
these  two  faculties ;  if  the  latter  be  not  ar- 
rested and  put  on  its  proper  exercise,  you  are 
making  no  approximation  whatever  to  the 
right  habit  and  character  of  religion.  There 
are  a  thousand  ways  in  which  we  may  con- 
trive to  regale  your  taste  for  that  which  is 
beauteous  and  majestic.  It  may  find  its 
gratification  in  the  loveliness  of  a  vale,  or  in 
the  freer  and  bolder  outlines  of  an  upland 
situation,  or  in  the  terrors  of  a  storm,  or  in 
the  sublime  contemplations  of  astronomy, 
or  in  the  magnificent  idea  of  a  God  who 
sends  forth  the  wakefulness  of  his  omniscient 
eye,  and  the  vigor  of  his  upholding  hand, 
throughout  all  the  realms  of  nature  and  of 
providence.  The  mere  taste  of  the  human 
mind  may  get  its  ample  enjoyment  in  each 
and  in  all  of  these  objects,  or  in  a  vivid  rep- 
resentation of  them;  nor  does  it  make  any 
material  difference  whether  this  representa- 


224  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

tion  be  addressed  to  you  from  the  stanzas  of 
a  poem,  or  from  the  recitations  of  a  theatre, 
or  finally  from  the  discourses  and  the  demon- 
strations of  a  pulpit.  And  thus  it  is  that 
still,  on  the  impulse  of  the  one  principle  only. 
people  may  come  in  gathering  multitudes  to 
the  house  of  (rod,  and  share  with  eagerness  in 
all  the  glow  and  bustle  of  a  crowded  attend- 
ance, and  have  their  every  eye  directed  to 
the  speaker,  and  feel  a  responding  move- 
ment in  their  bosom  to  his  many  appeals  and 
his  many  arguments,  and  carry  a  solemn  and 
overpowering  impression  of  all  the  services 
away  with  them;  and  yet,  throughout  the 
whole  of  this  seemly  exhibition,  not  one  ef- 
fectual knock  may  have  been  given  at  the 
door  of  conscience.  The  other  principle  may 
be  as  profoundly  asleep  as  if  hushed  into  the 
insensibility  of  death.  There  is  a  spirit  of 
deep  slumber,  it  would  appear,  which  the 
music  of  no  description,  even  though  at- 
tuned to  a  theme  so  lofty  as  the  greatness 
and  majesty  of  the  Godhead,  can  ever  charm 
away.  O,  it  may  have  been  a  piece  of  pa- 
rading insignificance  altogether — the  minis- 
ter playing  on  his  favorite  instrument,  and 
the  people  dissipating  away  their  time  on 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE    TASTE.  225 

the   charm  and  idle  luxury  of   a  theatrical 
emotion. 

The  religion  of  taste  is  one  thing;  the 
religion  of  conscience  is  another.  I  recur  to 
the  test.  What  is  the  plain  and  practical 
doing  which  ought  to  issue  from  the  whole 
of  our  argument?  If  one  lesson  come  more 
clearly  or  more  authoritatively  out  of  it  than 
another,  it  is  the  supremacy  of  the  Bible.  If 
fitted  to  impress  one  movement  rather  than 
another,  it  is  that  movement  of  docility  in 
virtue  of  which,  man,  with  the  feeling  that 
he  has  all  to  learn,  places  himself  in  the  atti- 
tude of  a  little  child,  before  the  book  of  the 
unsearchable  God,  who  has  deigned  to  break 
his  silence,  and  to  transmit,  even  to  our  age 
of  the  world,  a  faithful  record  of  his  own 
communication.  What  progress,  then,  are 
you  making  in  this  movement  ?  Are  you,  or 
are  you  not,  like  new-born  babes,  desiring 
the  sincere  milk  of  the  word,  that  you  may 
grow  thereby?  How  are  you  coming  on  in 
the  work  of  casting  down  your  lofty  imagi- 
nations ?  With  the  modesty  of  true  science, 
which  is  here  at  one  with  the  humblest  and 
most  penitential  feeling  which  Christianity 

can  awaken,  are  you  bending  an  eye  of  ear- 

10* 


226  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

nestness  on  the  Bible,  and  appropriating  its 
informations,  and  moulding  your  every  con- 
viction to  its  doctrines  and  its  testimonies  ? 
How  long,  I  beseech  you,  has  this  been  your 
habitual  exercise  ?  By  this  time  do  you  feel 
the  darkness  and  the  insufficiency  of  nature  ? 
Have  you  found  your  way  to  the  need  of  an 
atonement?  Have  you  learned  the  might 
and  the  efficacy  which  are  given  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  faith  ?  Have  you  longed  with  all 
your  energies  to  realize  it?  Have  you  bro- 
ken loose  from  the  obvious  misdoings  of 
your  former  history?  Are  you  convinced  of 
your  total  deficiency  from  the  spiritual  obedi- 
ence of  the  affections?  Have  you  read  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  by  whom,  renewed  in  the 
whole  desire  and  character  of  your  mind,  you 
are  led  to  run  with  alacrity  in  the  way  of 
the  commandments?  Have  you  turned  to 
its  practical  use  the  important  truth,  that  he 
is  given  to  the  believing  prayers  of  all  who 
really  want  to  be  relieved  from  the  power 
both  of  secret  and  of  visible  iniquity  ?  I  de- 
mand something  more  than  the  homage  you 
have  rendered  to  the  pleasantness  of  the 
voice  that  has  been  sounded  in  your  hearing. 
What  I  have  now  to  urge  upon  you  is,  the 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE   TASTE.  227 

bidding  of  the  voice  —  to  read,  and  to  re- 
form, and  to  pray,  and,  in  a  word,  to  make 
your  consistent  step  from  the  elevations  of 
philosophy,  to  all  those  exercises,  whether  of 
doing  or  of  believing,  which  mark  the  con- 
duct of  the  earnest,  and  the  devoted,  and  the 
subdued,  and  the  aspiring  Christian. 

This  brings  under  our  view  a  most  deep- 
ly interesting  exhibition  of  human  nature, 
which  may  often  be  witnessed  among  the 
cultivated  orders  of  society.  "When  a  teacher 
of  Christianity  addresses  himself  to  that 
principle  of  justice  within  us,  in  virtue  of 
which  we  feel  the  authority  of  G-od  to  be  a 
prerogative  which  righteously  belongs  to  him, 
he  is  then  speaking  the  appropriate  language 
of  religion,  and  is  advancing  its  naked  and 
appropriate  claim  over  the  obedience  of  man- 
kind. He  is  then  urging  that  pertinent  and 
powerful  consideration,  upon  which  alone  he 
can  ever  hope  to  obtain  the  ascendency  of  a 
practical  influence  over  the  purposes  and  the 
conduct  of  human  beings.  It  is  only  by  in- 
sisting on  the  moral  claim  of  God  to  a  right 
of  government  over  his  creatures,  that  he  can 
carry  their  loyal  subordination  to  the  will  of 
God.  Let  him  keep  by  this  single  argument, 


228  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

and  urge  it  upon  the  conscience,  and  then, 
without  any  of  the  other  accompaniments  of 
what  is  called  Christian  oratory,  he  may 
bring  convincingly  home  upon  his  hearers  all 
the  varieties  of  Christian  doctrine.  He  may 
establish  within  their  minds  the  dominion  of 
all  that  is  essential  in  the  faith  of  the  New 
Testament.  He  may,  by  carrying  out  this 
principle  of  G-od's  authority  into  all  its  appli- 
cations, convince  them  of  sin.  He  may  lead 
them  to  compare  the  loftiness  and  spirituality 
of  his  law  with  the  habitual  obstinacy  of 
their  own  worldly  affections.  He  may  awa- 
ken them  to  the  need  of  a  Saviour.  He  may 
urge  them  to  a  faithful  and  submissive  peru- 
sal of  God's  own  communication.  He  may 
thence  press  upon  them  the  truth  and  the 
immutability  of  their  Sovereign.  He  may 
work  in  their  hearts  an  impression  of  this 
emphatic  saying,  that  God  is  not  to  be  mock- 
ed— that  his  law  must  be  upheld  in  all  the 
significancy  of  its  proclamations  —  and  that 
either  its  severities  must  be  discharged  upon 
the  guilty,  or  in  some  other  way  an  adequate 
provision  be  found  for  its  outraged  dignity, 
and  its  violated  sanctions.  Thus  rnay  he 
lead  them  to  flee  for  refuge  to  the  blood  of 


FUTILITY   OF  MERE  TASTE.  229 

the  atonement,  And  he  may  further  urge 
upon  his  hearers  how,  such  is  the  enormity  of 
sin,  that  it  is  not  enough  to  have  found  an 
expiation  for  it — how  its  power  and  its  exist- 
ence must  be  eradicated  from  the  hearts  of  all 
who  are  to  spend  their  eternity  in  the  man- 
sions of  the  celestial — how,  for  this  purpose, 
an, expedient  is  made  known  to  us  in  the 
New  Testament — how  a  process  must  be  de- 
scribed upon  earth,  to  which  there  is  given 
the' appropriate  name  of  sanctification — how, 
at  the  very  commencement  of  every  true 
course  of  discipleship,  this  process  is  entered 
upon  with  a  purpose  in  the  mind  of  forsak- 
ing all  —  how  nothing  short  of  a  single  de- 
votedness  to  the  will  of  Grod  will  ever  carry 
us  forward  through  the  successive  stages  of 
this  holy  and  elevated  career — how,  to  help 
the  infirmities  of  our  nature,  the  Spirit  is 
ever  in  readiness  to  be  given  to  those  who 
ask  it ;  and  that  thus  the  life  of  every  Chris- 
tian becomes  a  life  of  entire  dedication  to 
Him  who  died  for  us — a  life  of  prayer  and 
vigilance,  and  close  dependence  on  the  grace 
of  God — and,  as  the  infallible  result  of  the 
plain  but  powerful  and  peculiar  teaching 
of  the  Bible,  a  life  of  vigorous  unwearied 


230  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

activity  in  the  doing  of   all  the  command- 
ments. 

Now,  this  I  would  call  the  essential  busi- 
ness of  Christianity.  This  is  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Jesus,  in  its  naked  and  unassociated 
simplicity.  In  the  work  of  urging  it,  noth- 
ing more  might  have  been  done,  than  to  pre- 
sent certain  views,  which  may  come  with*  as 
great  clearness  and  freshness,  and  take  as 
full  possession  of  the  mind  of  a  peasant  as 
of  the  mind  of  a  philosopher.  There  is  a 
sense  of  God,  and  of  the  rightful  allegiance 
that  is  due  to  him.  There  are  plain  and 
practical  appeals  to  the  conscience.  There 
is  a  comparison  of  the  state  of  the  heart  with 
the  requirements  of  a  law  which  proposes  to 
take  the  heart  under  its  obedience.  There 
is  the  inward  discernment  of  its  coldness 
about  God ;  of  its  unconcern  about  the  mat- 
ters of  duty  and  of  eternity ;  of  its  devotion 
to  the  forbidden  objects  of  sense  ;  of  its  con- 
stant tendency  to  nourish,  within  its  own  re- 
ceptacles, the  very  element  and  principle  of 
rebellion,  and  in  virtue  of  this,  to  send  forth 
the  stream  of  an  hourly  and  accumulating  dis- 
obedience over  those  doings  of  the  outer  man 
which  make  up  his  visible  history  in  the 


FUTILITY  OF  HERE   TASTE.  231 

world.  There  is  such  an  earnest  and  over- 
powering impression  of  all  this,  as  will  fix 
a  man  down  to  the  single  object  of  deliver- 
ance— as  will  make  him  awake  only  to  those 
realities  which  have  a  significant  and  sub- 
stantial bearing  on  the  case  that  engrosses 
him — as  will  teach  him  to  nauseate  all  the 
impertinences  of  tasteful  and  ambitious  de- 
scription— as  will  attach  him  to  the  truth 
in  its  simplicity  —  as  will  fasten  his  every 
regard  upon  the  Bible,  where,  if  he  persevere 
in  the  work  of  honest  inquiry,  he  will  soon 
be  made  to  perceive  the  accordancy  between 
its  statements,  and  all  those  movements  of 
fear,  or  guilt,  or  deeply  felt  necessity,  or  con- 
scious darkness,  stupidity,  and  unconcern  about 
the  matters  of  salvation,  which  pass  within 
his  own  bosom  ;  in  a  word,  as  will  endear 
to  him  that  plainness  of  speech  by  which  his 
own  experience  is  set  evidently  before  him, 
and  that  plain  phraseology  of  Scripture,  which 
is  best  fitted  to  bring  home  to  him  the  doc- 
trine of  redemption,  in  all  the  truth  and  in 
all  the  preciousness  of  its  -applications. 

Now,  the  whole  of  this  work  may  be  go- 
ing on,  and  that  too  in  the  wisest  and  most 
effectual  manner,  without  so  much  as  one  par- 


232  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

ticle  of  incense  being  offered  to  any  of  the 
subordinate  principles  of  the  human  constitu- 
tion. There  may  be  no  fascinations  of  style. 
There  may  be  no  magnificence  of  description. 
There  may  be  no  poignancy  of  acute  and 
irresistible  argument.  There  may  be  a  rivet- 
ed attention  on  the  part  of  those  whom  the 
Spirit  of  God  hath  awakened  to  seriousness 
about  the  plain  and  affecting  realities  of  con- 
version. Their  conscience  may  be  stricken, 
and  their  appetite  be  excited  for  an  actual 
settlement  of  mind  on  those  points  about 
which  they  feel  restless  and  unconfirmed. 
Such  as  these  are  vastly  too  much  engrossed 
with  the  exigencies  of  their  condition  to  be 
repelled  by  the  homeliness  of  unadorned  truth. 
And  thus  it  is,  that  while  the  loveliness  of  the 
song  has  done  so  little  in  helping  on  the  influ- 
ences of  the  gospel,  our  men  of  simplicity 
and  prayer  have  done  so  much  for  it.  With 
a  deep  and  earnest  impression  of  the  truth 
themselves,  they  have  made  manifest  that 
truth  to  the  consciences  of  others.  Missiona- 
ries have  gone  forth  with  no  other  preparation 
than  the  simple  word  of  the  testimony ;  and 
thousands  have  owned  its  power,  by  being 
both  the  hearers  of  the  word  and  the  doers  of 


FUTILITY   OF  MERE   TASTE.  233 

it  also.  They  have  given  us  the  experiment 
in  a  state  of  unmingled  simplicity;  and  we 
learn  from  the  success  of  their  nohle  example, 
that  without  any  one  human  expedient  to 
charm  the  ear,  the  heart  may,  by  the  naked 
instrumentality  of  the  word  of  God,  urged 
with  plainness  on  those  who  feel  its  deceit 
and  its  worthlessness,  he  charmed  to  an  entire 
acquiescence  in  the  revealed  way  of  God,  and 
have  impressed  upon  it  the  genuine  stamp 
and  character  of  godliness. 

Could  the  sense  of  what  is  due  to  God  be 
effectually  stirred  up  within  the  human 
bosom,  it  would  lead  to  a  practical  carrying 
of  all  the  lessons  of  Christianity.  Now,  to 
awaken  this  moral  sense,  there  are  certain 
simple  relations  between  the  creature  and  the 
Creator,  which  must  be  clearly  apprehended, 
and  manifested  with  power  unto  the  con- 
science. We  believe,  that  however  much 
philosophers  may  talk  about  the  comparative 
ease  of  forming  those  conceptions  which  are 
simple,  they  will,  if  in  good  earnest  after  a 
right  footing  with  God,  soon  discover  in  their 
own  minds,  all  that  darkness  and  incapacity 
about  spiritual  things,  which  are  so  broadly 
announced  to  us  in  the  New  Testament.  And 


234      ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

0,  it  is  a  deeply  interesting  spectacle,  to  be- 
hold a  man  who  can  take  a  masterly  and 
commanding  survey  over  the  field  of  some 
human  speculation,  who  can  clear  his  dis- 
criminated way  through  all  the  turns  and 
ingenuities  of  some  human  argument,  who  by 
the  march  of  a  mighty  and  resistless  demon- 
stration, can  scale  with  assured  footstep  the 
sublimities  of  science,  and  from  his  firm 
stand  on  the  eminence  he  has  won,  can  de- 
scry some  wondrous  range  of  natural  or  in- 
tellectual truth  spread  out  in  subordination 
before  him ;  and  yet  this  very  man  may, 
in  reference  to  the  moral  and  authoritative 
claims  of  the  Godhead,  be  in  a  state  of  utter 
apathy  and  blindness.  All  his  attempts, 
either  at  the  spiritual  discernment,  or  the 
practical  impression  of  this  doctrine,  may 
be  arrested  and  baffled  by  the  weight  of  some 
great  inexplicable  impotency.  A  man  of 
homely  talents,  and  still  homelier  education, 
may  see  what  he  cannot  see,  and  feel  what 
he  cannot  feel ;  and  wise  and  prudent  as  he 
is,  there  may  lie  the  barrier  of  an  obstinate 
and  impenetrable  concealment,  between  his 
accomplished  mind  and  those  things  which 
are  revealed  unto  babes. 


FUTILITY   OF   MERE   TASTE.  235 

But  while  his  mind  is  thus  utterly  devoid 
of  what  may  be  called  the  main  or  elemental 
principle  of  theology,  he  may  have  a  far  quick- 
er  apprehension,  and  have  his  taste  and  his 
feelings  much  more  powerfully  interested, 
than  the  simple  Christian  who  is  heside  him, 
by  what  may  be  called  the  circumstantials 
of  theology.  He  can  throw  a  wider  and 
more  rapid  glance  over  the  magnitudes  of  cre- 
ation. He  can  be  more  delicately  alive  to  the 
beauties  and  the  sublimities  which  abound  in 
it.  He  can,  when  the  idea  of  a  presiding  God 
is  suggested  to  him,  have  a  more  kindling 
sense  of  his  natural  majesty,  and  be  able, 
both  in  imagination  and  in  words,  to  surround 
the  throne  of  the  Divinity  by  the  blazonry  of 
more  great  and  splendid  and  elevating  im- 
ages. And  yet,  with  all.  those  powers  of  con- 
ception which  he  does  possess,  he  may  not 
possess  that  on  which  practical  Christianity 
hinges.  The  moral  relation  between  him  and 
God  may  neither  be  effectively  perceived, 
nor  faithfully  proceeded  on.  Conscience  may 
be  in  a  state  of  the  most  entire  dormancy, 
and  the  man  be  regaling  himself  with  the 
magnificence  of  God,  while  he  neither  loves 
God,  nor  believes  God,  nor  obeys  God. 


236  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

And  here  I  cannot  but  remark,  how  much 
effect  and  simplicity  go  together  in  the  an- 
nals of  Moravianism.  The  men  of  this  truly 
interesting  denomination  address  themselves 
exclusively  to  that  principle  of  our  nature  on 
which  the  proper  influence  of  Christianity 
turns.  Or,  in  other-  words,  they  take  up  the 
subject  of  the  gospel  message,  that  message 
devised  by  Him  who  knew  what  was  in  man, 
and  who  therefore  knew  how  to  make  the 
right  and  the  suitable  application  to  man. 
They  urge  the  plain  word  of  the  testimony, 
and  they  pray  for  a  blessing  from  on  high; 
and  that  thick  impalpable  veil  by  which 
the  god  of  this  world  blinds  the  hearts  of 
men  who  believe  not,  lest  the  light  of  the 
glorious  gospel  of  Christ  should  enter  into 
them — that  veil  which  no  power  of  philoso- 
phy can  draw  aside,  gives  way  to  the  dem- 
onstration of  the  Spirit;  and  thus  it  is  that 
a  clear  perception  of  scriptural  truth,  and  all 
the  freshness  and  permanency  of  its  moral 
influences,  are  to  be  met  with  among  men 
who  have  just  emerged  from  the  rudest  and 
the  grossest  barbarity.  O,  when  one  looks  at 
the  number  and  the  greatness  of  their  achieve- 
ments— when  he  thinks  of  the  change  they 


FUTILITY   OF   MERE   TASTE.  237 

have  made  on  materials  so  coarse  and  so  un- 
promising— when  he  eyes  the  villages  they 
have  formed,  and  around  the  whole  of  that 
engaging  perspective  by  which  they  have 
checkered  and  relieved  the  grim  solitude  of 
the  desert,  he  witnesses  the  love,  and  listens 
to  the  piety  of  reclaimed  savages ;  who  would 
not  long  to  he  in  possession  of  the  charm  by 
which  they  have  wrought  this  wondrous 
transformation?  who  would  not  willingly 
exchange  for  it  all  the  parade  of  human 
eloquence,  and  all  the  confidence  of  human 
argument?  and  for  the  wisdom  of  winning 
souls,  who  is  there  that  would  not  rejoice  to 
throw  the  loveliness  of  the  song,  and  all  the 
insignificancy  of  its  passing  fascinations  away 
from  him? 

And  yet  it  is  right  that  every  cavil 
against  Ctttistianity  should  be  met,  and 
every  argument  for  it  be  exhibited,  and  all 
the  graces  and  sublimities  of  its  doctrine 
be  held  out  to  their  merited  admiration. 
And  if  it  be  true,  as  it  certainly  is,  that 
throughout  the  whole  of  this  process,  a  man 
may  be  carried  rejoicingly  along,  from  the 
mere  indulgence  of  his  taste,  and  the  mere 
play  and  exercise  of  his  understanding, 


238  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

while  conscience  is  untouched,  and  the  su- 
premacy of  moral  claims  upon  the  heart  and 
the  conduct  is  practically  disowned  by  him, 
it  is  further  right  that  this  should  be  adverted 
to,  and  that  such  a  melancholy  unhinge- 
ment in  the  constitution  of  man  should  be 
fully  laid  open,  and  that  he  should  be  driven 
out  of  the  seductive  complacency  which  he 
is  so  apt  to  cherish,  merely  because  he  de- 
lights in  the  loveliness  of  the  song;  and 
that  he  should  be  urged,  with  the  imperious- 
ness  of  a  demand  which  still  remains  unsatis- 
fied, to  turn  him  from  the  corrupt  indifference 
of  nature,  and  to  become  personally  a  relig- 
ious man;  and  that  he  should  be  assured 
how  all  the  gratification  he  felt  in  listening 
to  the  word  which  respected  the  kingdom  of 
God,  will  be  of  no  avail  unless  that  kingdom 
come  to  himself  in  power — that'it  will  only 
go  to  heighten  the  perversity  of  his  charac- 
ter— that  it  will  not  extenuate  his  real  and 
practical  ungodliness,  but  will  serve  most  fear- 
fully to  aggravate  the  condemnation  of  it. 

With  a  religion  so  argumentable  as  ours, 
it  may  be  easy  to  gather  out  of  it  a  feast  for 
the  human  understanding.  With  a  religion 
so  magnificent  as  ours,  it  may  be  easy  to 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE   TASTE.       .       239 

gather  out  of  it  a  feast  for  the  human  imagi- 
nation. But  with  a  religion  so  humbling 
and  so  strict  and  so  spiritual,  it  is  not  easy  to 
mortify  the  pride  or  to  quell  the  strong  enmi- 
ty of  nature,  or  to  arrest  the  currency  of  the 
affections,  or  to  turn  the  constitutional  hab- 
its, or  to  pour  a  new  complexion  over  the 
moral  history,  or  to  stem  the  domineering 
influence  of  things  seen  and  things  sensible, 
or  to  invest  faith  with  a  practical  suprem- 
acy, or  to  give  its  objects  such  a  vivacity  of 
influence  as  shall  overpower  the  near  and  the 
hourly  impressions  that  are  ever  emanating 
upon  man  from  a  seducing  world.  It  is  here 
that  man  feels  himself  treading  upon  the 
limit  of  his  helplessness.  It  is  here  that  he 
sees  where  the  strength  of  nature  ends,  and 
the  power  of  grace  must  either  be  put  forth, 
or  leave  him  to  grope  his  darkling  way  with- 
out one  inch  of  progress  towards  the  life  and 
the  substance  of  Christianity.  It  is  here  that 
a  barrier  rises  on  the  contemplation  of  the 
inquirer — the  barrier  of  separation  between 
the  carnal  and  the  spiritual,  and  on  which 
he  may  idly  waste  the  every  energy  which 
belongs  to  him,  in  the  enterprise  of  sur- 
mounting it.  It  is  here  that,  after  having 


240  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

walked  the  round  of  nature's  acquisitions, 
and  lavished  upon  the  truth  all  his  ingenui- 
ties, and  surveyed  it  in  its  every  palpable 
character  of  grace  and  majesty,  he  will  still 
feel  himself  on  a  level  with  the  simplest  and 
most  untutored  of  the  species.  He  needs  the 
power  of  a  living  manifestation.  He  needs 
the  anointing  which  remaineth.  He  needs 
that  which  fixes  and  perpetuates  a  stable 
revolution  upon  the  character,  and  in  virtue 
of  which  he  may  be  advanced  from  the  state 
of  one  who  hears  and  is  delighted,  to  the 
state  of  one  who  hears  and  is  a  doer.  0, 
how  strikingly  is  the  experience  even  of  vig- 
orous and  accomplished  nature  at  one  on  this 
point  with  the  announcements  of  revelation, 
that  to  work  this  change,  there  must  be  the 
putting  forth  of  a  peculiar  agency ;  and  that  it 
is  an  agency  which,  withheld  from  the  exer- 
cise of  loftiest  talent,  is  often  brought  down  on 
an  impressed  audience  through  the  humblest 
of  all  instrumentality,  with  the  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Spirit  and  with  power. 

Think  it  not  enough  that  you  carry  in 
your  bosom  an  expanding  sense  of  the  mag- 
nificence of  creation,  but  pray  for  a  subdu- 
ing sense  of  the  authority  of  the  Creator. 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE   TASTE.  241 

Think  it  not  enough,  that  with  the  justness 
of  a  philosophical  discernment  you  have 
traced  that  boundary  which  hems  in  all  the 
possibilities  of  human  attainment,  and  have 
found  that  all  beyond  it  is  a  dark  and  fath- 
omless unknown.  But  let  this  modesty  of 
science  be  carried,  as  in  consistency  it  ought, 
to  the  question  of  revelation,  and  let  all  the 
antipathies  of  nature  be  schooled  to  acquies- 
cence in  the  authentic  testimonies  of  the 
Bible.  Think  it  not  enough,  that  you  have 
looked  with  sensibility  and  wonder  at  the 
representation  of  God  throned  in  immensity, 
yet  combining  with  the  vastness  of  his  entire 
superintendence,  a  most  thorough  inspection 
into  all  the  minute  and  countless  diversities 
of  existence.  Think  of  your  own  heart  as 
one  of  these  diversities,  and  that  he  ponders 
all  its  tendencies,  and  has  an  eye  upon  all  its 
movements,  and  marks  all  its  waywardness, 
and,  God  of  judgment  as  he  is,  records  its 
every  secret  and  its  every  sin  in  the  book  of 
his  remembrance.  Think  it  not  enough,  that 
you  have  been  led  to  associate  a  grandeur 
with  the  salvation  of  the  New  Testament, 
when  made  to  understand  that  it  draws  upon 
it  the  regards  of  an  arrested  universe.  How 

Cbr.Rer.  11 


242  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

is  it  arresting  your  own  mind?  What  has 
been  the  earnestness  of  your  personal  regards 
towards  it?  And  tell  me,  if  all  its  faith,  and 
all  its  repentance,  and  all  its  holiness,  are 
not  disowned  by  you  ?  Think  it  not  enough, 
that  you  have  felt  a  sentimental  charm 
when  angels  were  pictured  to  your  fancy  as 
beckoning  you  to  their  mansions,  and  anx- 
iously looking  to  the  every  symptom  of  your 
grace  and  reformation.  0,  be  constrained  by 
the  power  of  all  this  tenderness,  and  yield 
yourselves  up  in  a  practical  obedience  to 
the  call  of  the  Lord  G-od,  merciful  and  gra- 
cious. Think  it  not  enough,  that  you  have 
shared  for  a  moment  in  the  deep  and  busy 
interest  of  that  arduous  conflict  which  is 
now  going  on  for  a  moral  ascendency  over 
the  species.  Remember  that  the  conflict  is  for 
each  of  you  individually,  and  let  this  alarm 
you  into  a  watchfulness  against  the  power 
of  every  temptation,  and  a  cleaving  depend- 
ence upon  Him  through  whom  alone  you  will 
be  more  than  conquerors.  Above  all,  forget 
not,  that  while  you  only  hear  and  are  de- 
lighted, you  are  still  under  nature's  power- 
lessness  and  nature's  condemnation,  and  that 
the  foundation  is  not  laid,  tlio  mighty  and 


FUTILITY  OF  MERE   TASTE.  243 

essential  change  is  not  accomplished,  the 
transition  from  death  unto  life  is  not  under- 
gone, the  saving  faith  is  not  formed,  nor  the 
passage  taken  from  darkness  to  the  marvel- 
lous light  of  the  gospel,  till  you  are  hoth 
hearers  of  the  word  and  doers  also.  "  For  if 
any  be  a  hearer  of  the  word  and  not  a  doer, 
he  is  like  unto  a  man  beholding  his  natural 
face  in  a  glass :  for  he  beholdeth  himself,  and 
goeth  his  way,  and  straightway  forgetteth 
what  manner  of  man  he  was." 


SCRIPTURAL  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  writer  of  these  Discourses  has  drawn  up  the  following  com- 
pilation of  passages  from  Scripture,  as  serving  to  illustrate  or  to 
confirm  the  leading  arguments  which  have  been  employed  in  each 
separate  division  of  his  subject. 

DISCOURSE   I. 

IN  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth.  GEN.  1:1. 

Thus  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  finished,  and 
all  the  host  of  them.  GEN.  2:1. 

Behold,  the  heaven  and  the  heaven  of  heavens  is 
the  Lord's  thy  God,  the  earth  also,  with  all  that  there- 
in is.  DEUT.  10  : 14. 

There  is  none  like  unto  the  God  of  Jeshurun,  who 
rideth  upon  the  heaven  in  thy  help,  and  in  his  excel- 
lency on  the  sky.  DEUT.  33  : 26. 

And  Hezekiali  prayed  before  the  Lord,  and  said, 
0  Lord  God  of  Israel,  which  dwellest  between  the 
cherubim,  thou  art  the  God,  even  thou  alone,  of  all 
the  kingdoms  of  the  earth;  thou  hast  made  heaven 
and  earth.  2  KINGS  19  : 15. 

For  all  the  gods  of  the  people  are  idols ;  but  the 
Lord  made  the  heavens.  1  CHRON.  16  : 26. 

Thou,  even  thou,  art  Lord  alone  ;  thou  hast  made 
heaven,  the  heaven  of  heavens,  with  all  their  host,  the 


246  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

earth,  and  all  things  that  are  therein,  the  seas,  and  all 
that  is  therein ;  and  thou  preservest  them  all ;  and 
the  host  of  heaven  worshippeth  thee.  NEH.  9  : 6. 

Which  alone  spreadeth  out  the  heavens,  and  tread- 
eth  upon  the  waves  of  the  sea  ;  which  maketh  Arctu- 
rus,  Orion,  and  Pleiades,  and  the  chambers  of  the 
south.  JOB  9  :  8,  9. 

He  stretcheth  out  the  north  over  the  empty  place, 
and  hangeth  the  earth  upon  nothing.  JOB  26  : 7. 

By  his  Spirit  he  hath  garnished  the  heavens.  JOB 
20  : 13. 

The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God ;  and  the 
firmament  showeth  his  handiwork.  PSA.  19  : 1. 

By  the  word  of  the  Lord  were  the  heavens  made ; 
and  all  the  host  of  them  by  the  breath  of  his  mouth. 
PSA.  33 : 6. 

Of  old  hast  thou  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth ; 
and  the  heavens  are  the  work  of  thy  hands.  PSA. 
102 : 25. 

Who  coverest  thyself  with  light  as  with  a  gar- 
ment ;  who  stretchest  out  the  heavens  like  a  curtain. 
PSA.  104 : 2. 

He  appointed  the  moon  for  seasons ;  the  sun  know- 
eth  his  going  down.  PSA.  104  : 19. 

Ye  are  blessed  of  the  Lord  which  made  heaven 
and  earth.  The  heaven,  even  the  heavens,  are  the 
Lord's ;  but  the  earth  hath  he  given  to  the  children 
of  men.  PSA.  115  : 15,  16. 

My  help  cometh  from  the  Lord,  which  made  heaven 
and  earth.  PSA.  121 : 2. 

Our  help  is  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  who  made 
heaven  and  earth.  PSA.  124  : 8. 


SCRIPTURAL   ILLUSTRATIONS.  247 

The  Lord  that  made  heaven  and  earth  bless  thee 
out  of  Zion.  PSA.  134  : 3. 

Which  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  and  all 
that  therein  is.  PSA.  146  : 6. 

The  Lord  by  wisdom  hath  founded  the  earth ;  by 
understanding  hath  he  established  the  heavens.  PROV. 
3:19. 

Who  hath  measured  the  waters  in  the  hollow  of 
his  hand,  and  meted  out  heaven  with  the  span,  and 
comprehended  the  dust  of  the  earth  in  a  measure,  and 
weighed  the  mountains  in  scales,  and  the  hills  in  a 
balance?  ISA.  40:12. 

It  is  he  that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth, 
and  the  inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grasshoppers ;  that 
stretcheth  out  the  heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth 
them  out  as  a  tent  to  dwell  in.  ISA.  40  : 22. 

Thus  saith  God  the  Lord,  he  that  created  the  heav- 
ens, and  stretched  them  out ;  he  that  spread  forth  the 
earth,  and  that  which  cometh  out  of  it ;  he  that  giveth 
breath  unto  the  people  upon  it,  and  spirit  to  them  that 
walk  therein.  ISA.  42  :  5. 

Thus  saith  the  Lord  thy  Kedeemer,  and  he  that 
formed  thee  from  the  womb,  I  am  the  Lord  that  mak- 
eth  all  things ;  that  stretcheth  forth  the  heavens  alone ; 
that  spreadeth  abroad  the  earth  by  myself.  ISA.  44  : 24. 

I  have  made  the  earth,  and  created  man  upon  it :  I, 
even  my  hands,  have  stretched  out  the  heavens,  and 
all  their  host  have  I  commanded.  ISA.  45  : 12. 

For  thus  saith  the  Lord  that  created  the  heavens ; 
God  himself  that  formed  the  earth  and  made  it ;  he 
hath  established  it,  he  created  it  not  in  vain,  he  form- 
ed it  to  be  inhabited.  ISA.  45  : 18. 


248  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

My  hand  also  hath  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
earth,  and  my  right  hand  hath  spanned  the  heavens ; 
when  I  call  unto  them,  they  stand  up  together.  ISA. 
48  : 13. 

He  hath  made  the  earth  by  his  power,  he  hath  es- 
tablished the  world  by  his  wisdom,  and  hath  stretched 
out  the  heavens  by  his  discretion.  JER.  10  : 12. 

Ah  Lord  God !  behold,  thou  hast  made  the  heaven 
and  the  earth  by  thy  great  power  and  stretched  out 
arm,  and  there  is  nothing  too  hard  for  thee.  JER. 
32:17.' 

He  hath  made  the  earth  by  his  power,  he  hath  es- 
tablished the  world  by  his  wisdom,  and  hath  stretched 
out  the  heaven  by  his  understanding.  JER.  51 : 15. 

It  is  he  that  buildeth  his  stories  in  the  heaven,  and 
hath  founded  his  troop  in  the  earth;  he  that  calleth 
for  the  waters  of  the  sea,  and  poureth  them  out  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth :  The  Lord  is  his  name.  AMOS 
9:6. 

"We  also  are  men  of  like  passions  with  you,  and 
preach  unto  you  that  ye  should  turn  from  these  vani- 
ties unto  the  living  God,  which  made  heaven,  and 
earth,  and  the  sea,  and  all  things  that  are  therein. 
ACTS  14:15. 

Hath  in  these  last  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  Son, 
whom  he  hath  appointed  heir  of  all  things,  by  whom 
also  he  made  the  worlds.  HEB.  1:2. 

Thou.  Lord,  in  the  beginning  hast  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  the  earth ;  and  the  heavens  are  the  works  of 
thy  hands.  HEB.  1 : 10. 

Through  faith,  we  understand  that  the  worlds  were 
framed  by  the  word  of  God.  HEB.  11 : 3. 


SCRIPTURAL  ILLUSTRATIONS.  249 

DISCOURSE  II. 

The  secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God  ; 
but  those  things  which  are  revealed  belong  unto  us 
and  to  our  children  for  ever,  that  we  may  do  all  the 
words  of  this  law.  DEUT.  29  : 29. 

I  would  seek  unto  God,  and  unto  God  would  I 
commit  my  cause ;  which  doeth  great  things  and  un- 
searchable ;  marvellous  things  without  Dumber.  JOB 
5:8,9. 

Which  doeth  great  things  past  finding  out;  yea, 
and  wonders  without  number.  JOB  9  : 10. 

Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God?  canst  thou 
find  out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection?  JOB  11:7. 

Hast  thou  heard  the  secret  of  God  ?  and  dost  thou 
restrain  wisdom  to  thyself?  JOB  15  : 8. 

Lo,  these  are  parts  of  his  ways ;  but  how  little  a 
portion  is  heard  of  him?  but  the  thunder  of  his  power 
who  can  understand  ?  JOB  26  : 14. 

Behold,  God  is  great,  and  we  know  him  not,  nei- 
ther can  the  number  of  his  years  be  searched  out. 
JOB  36  : 26. 

God  thundereth  marvellously  with  his  voice ; 
great  things  doeth  he,  which  we  cannot  comprehend. 
JOB  37  : 5. 

Touching  the  Almighty,  we  cannot  find  him  out : 
he  is  excellent  in  power,  and  in  judgment,  and  in 
plenty  of  justice.  JOB  37  : 23. 

Thy  way  is  in  the  sea,  and  thy  path  in  the  great 
waters,  and  thy  footsteps  are  not  known.  PSA.  77  : 19. 

Great  is  the  Lord,  and  greatly  to  be  praised  ;  and 
his  greatness  is  unsearchable.  PSA.  145  :  3. 

For  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither 
11* 


250  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

are  your  "ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord.  For  as  the 
heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  arc  my  ways 
higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your 
thoughts.  ISA.  55  : 8,  9. 

Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Except  ye  be  converted,  and 
become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  MATT.  18:3. 

Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Whosoever  shall  not  receive 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child,  shall  in  no  wise 
enter  therein.  LUKE  18  : 17. 

O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and 
knowledge  of  God !  how  unsearchable  are  his  judg- 
ments, and  his  ways  past  finding  out !  For  who  hath 
known  the  mind  of  the  Lord?  or  who  hath  been  his 
counsellor?  ROM.  11 : 33,  34. 

Let  no  man  deceive  himself.  If  any  man  among 
you  seemeth  to  be  wise  in  this  world,  let  him  become 
a  fool,  that  he  may  be  wise.  1  COB.  3  : 18. 

For  if  a  man  think  himself  to  be  something,  when 
he  is  nothing,  he  deceiveth  himself.  GAL.  6  : 3. 

Beware  lest  any  man  spoil  you  through  philosophy 
and  vain  deceit,  after  the  tradition  of  men,  after  the 
rudiments  of  the  world,  and  not  after  Christ.  COL. 
2:8. 

0  Timothy,  keep  that  which  is  committed  to  thy 
trust,  avoiding  profane  and  vain  babblings,  and  oppo- 
sitions of  science  falsely  so  called.  1  TIM.  6  : 20. 

DISCOURSE    III. 

But  will  God  indeed  dwell  on  the  earth?  Behold, 
the  heaven  and  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain 
thee :  how  much  less  this  house  that  I  have  builded  ? 


SCRIPTURAL  ILLUSTRATIONS.  251 

Yet  have  thou  respect  unto  the  prayer  of  thy  servant, 
and  to  his  supplication,  0  Lord  my  God,  to  hearken 
unto  the  cry  and  to  the  prayer  which  thy  servant 
prayeth  before  thee  to-day :  that  thine  eyes  may  be 
open  toward  this  house  night  and  day,  even  toward 
the  place  of  which  thou  hast  said,  My  name  shall  be 
there ;  that  thou  mayest  hearken  unto  the  prayer 
which  thy  servant  shall  make  toward  this  place.  1 
KINGS  8  : 27-29. 

For  he  looketh  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  seeth 
under  the  whole  heaven.  JOB  28  : 24. 

For  his  eyes  are  upon  the  ways  of  man,  and  he 
seeth  all  his  goings.  JOB  34 : 21. 

Though  the  Lord  be  high,  yet  hath  he  respect  unto 
the  lowly.  PSA.  138  : 6. 

O  Lord,  thou  hast  searched  me,  and  known  me. 
Thou  knowest-  my  .downsitting  and  mine  uprising ; 
thou  understandest  my  thought  afar  off.  Thou  com- 
passest  rny  path  and  my  lying  down,  and  art  acquaint- 
ed with  all  my  ways.  For  there  is  not  a  word  in  my 
tongue,  but  lo,  O  Lord,  thou  knowest  it  altogether. 
Thou  hast  beset  me  behind  and  before,  and  laid  thy 
hand  upon  me.  Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for 
me ;  it  is  high,  I  cannot  attain  unto  it.  Whither  shall 
I  go  from  thy  Spirit?  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy 
presence  ?  PSA.  139  : 1-7. 

How  precious  also  are  thy  thoughts  unto  me,  O 
God!  how  great  is  the  sum  of  them!  If  I  should 
count  them,  they  are  more  in  number  than  the  sand : 
when  I  awake,  I  am  still  with  thee.  PSA.  139  : 17, 18. 

The  eyes  of  the  Lord  are  in  every  place,  beholding 
the  evil  and  the  good.  PROV.  15  :3. 


252  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

Can  any  hide  himself  in  secret  places,  that  I  shall 
not  see  him?  saith  the  Lord :  do  not  I  fill  heaven  and 
earth?  saith  the  Lord.  JEB.  23  : 24. 

Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air ;  for  they  sow  not,  nei- 
ther do  they  reap,  nor  gather  unto  barns ;  yet  your 
heavenly  Father  feedeth  them.  Are  ye  not  much  bet- 
ter than  they?  And  why  take  ye  thought  for  raiment? 
Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow ;  they 
toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin  :  and  yet  I  say  unto  you, 
that  even  Solomon,  in  all  his  glory,  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these.  Wherefore,  if  God  so  clothe  the 
grass  of  the  field,  which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is 
cast  into  the  oven,  shall  he  not  much  more  clothe  you, 
O  ye  of  little  faith?  MATT.  6  : 26,  28-30. 

But  the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  numbered. 
MATT.  10 : 30. 

Neither  is  there  any  creature  that  is  not  manifest 
in  his  sight :  but  all  things  are  naked  and  opened 
unto  the  eyes  of  him  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  HEB. 
4:13. 

DISCOURSE   IV. 

And  he  dreamed,  and  behold  a  ladder  set  up  on 
the  earth,  and  the  top  of  it  reached  to  heaven ;  and 
behold  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending 
on  it.  GEN.  28  : 12. 

For  a  thousand  years  in  thy  sight  are  but  as  yes- 
terday when  it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the  night. 
PSA.  90  : 4. 

Lift  up  your  eyes  to  the  heavens,  and  look  upon 
the  earth  beneath :  for  the  heavens  shall  vanish  away 
like  smoke,  and  the  earth  shall  wax  old  like  a  gar- 


SCRIPTURAL  ILLUSTRATIONS.  253 

meat,  and  they  that  dwell  therein  shall  die  in  like 
manner ;  but  my  salvation  shall  be  for  ever,  and  my 
righteousness  shall  not  be  abolished.  ISA.  51  : 6. 

For  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  in  the  glory  of  his 
Father  with  his  angels ;  and  then  he  shall  reward 
every  man  according  to  his  works.  MATT.  16  :  '21. 

When  the  Son  of  man  shall  come  in  his  glory,  and 
all  the  holy  angels  with  him,  then  shall  he  sit  upon 
the  throne  of  his  glory.  MATT.  25  : 31. 

Also  I  say  unto  you,  Whosoever  shall  confess  me 
before  men,  him  shall  the  Son  of  man  also  confess 
before  the  angels  of  God ;  but  he  that  denieth  me 
before  men,  shall  be  denied  before  the  angels  of  God. 
LUKE  12  : 8,  9. 

And  he  saith  unto  him,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  hereafter  ye  shall  see  heaven  open,  and  the  angels 
of  God  ascending  and  descending  upon  the  Son  of 
man.  JOHN  1  :51. 

We  are  made  a  spectacle  unto  the  world,  and  to 
angels,  and  to  men.  1  COB.  4  : 9. 

Wherefore  God  also  hath  highly  exalted  him,  and 
given  him  a  name  which  is  above  every  name :  that 
at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things 
in  heaven,  and  things  in  earth,  and  things  under  the 
earth ;  and  that  every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  Lord,  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father.  PHIL. 
2:9-11. 

When  the  Lord  Jesus  shall  be  revealed  from  heav- 
en with  his  mighty  angels.  2  THESS.  1:7. 

And  without  controversy  great  is  the  mystery  of 
godliness :  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in 
the  Spirit,  seen  of  angels,  preached  unto  the  Gentiles, 


25-1  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

believed  on  in  the  world,  received  up  into  glory.  1 
TIM.  3  : 16. 

I  charge  thee  before  God,  and  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  elect  angels,  that  thou  observe  these 
things.  1  Tm.  5:21. 

Aud  again  when  he  bringeth  in  the  first-begotten 
into  the  world,  he  saith,  And  let  all  the  angels  of  God 
worship  him.  HEB.  1  :  fi. 

But  ye  are  come  unto  mount  Zion.  and  unto  the 
city  of  the  living  God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and 
to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels,  to  the  general 
assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  writ- 
ten in  heaven,  and  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the 
spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect,  and  to  Jesus  the 
mediator  of  the  new  covenant.  HEB.  12 :  22-24. 

But,  beloved,  be  not  ignorant  of  this  one  thing, 
that  one  day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years, 
and  a  thousand  years  as  one  day.  The  Lord  is  not 
slack  concerning  his  promise,  as  some  men  count 
slackness ;  but  is  long-suffering  to  us-ward,  not  will- 
ing that  any  should  perish,  but  that  all  should  come 
to  repentance.  But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come 
as  a  thief  in  the  night;  in  the  which  the  heavens 
shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements 
shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,  the  earth  also  and  the 
works  that  are  therein  shall  be  burned  up.  2  PETEII 
3 : 8-10. 

And  the  angel  which  I  saw  stand  upon  the  sea  and 
upon  the  earth,  lifted  up  his  hand  to  heaven,  and  sware 
by  him  that  liveth  for  ever  and  ever,  who  created 
heaven  and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the  earth 
and  the  things  that  therein  are,  and  the  sea  and  the 


SCRIPTURAL   ILLUSTRATIONS.  255 

things  which  are  therein,  that  there  should  be  time  no 
longer.  REV.  10  : 5,  6. 

And  the  third  angel  followed  them,  saying  with 
a  loud  voice,  If  any  man  worship  the  beast  and  his 
image,  and  receive  his  mark  in  his  forehead,  or  in  his 
hand,  the  same  shall  drink  of  the  wine  of  the  wrath 
of  God,  which  is  poured  out  without  mixture  into  the 
cup  of  his  indignation;  and  he  shall  be  tormented 
with  fire  and  brimstone  in  the  presence  of  the  holy 
angels,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  Lamb.  REV. 
14:9,  10. 

And  I  saw  a  great  white  throne,  and  him  that  sat 
on  it,  from  whose  face  the  earth  and  the  heaven  fled 
away ;  and  there  was  found  no  place  for  them.  REV. 
20 : 11. 

DISCOURSE  V. 

And  Nathan  departed  unto  his  house.  And  the 
Lord  struck  the  child  that  Uriah's  wife  bare  unto 
David,  and  it  was  very  sick.  David  therefore  be- 
sought God  for  the  child ;  and  David  fasted,  and 
went  in  and  lay  all  night  upon  the  earth.  And  the 
elders  of  his  house  arose  and  went  to  him,  to  raise 
him  up  from  the  earth ;  but  he  would  not,  neither  did 
he  eat  bread  with  them.  And  it  came  to  pass  on  the 
seventh  day,  that  the  child  died.  And  the  servants 
of  David  feared  to  tell  him  that  the  child  was  dead ; 
for  they  said.  Behold,  while  the  child  was  yet  alive, 
we  spake  unto  him,  and  he  would  not  hearken  unto 
our  voice :  how  will  he  then  vex  himself,  if  we  tell 
him  that  the  child  is  dead?  But  when  David  saw 
that  his  servants  whispered,  David  perceived  that  the 


256  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

child  was  dead :  therefore  David  said  unto  his  ser- 
vants, Is  the  child  dead  ?  And  they  said,  He  is  dead. 
Then  David  arose  from  the  earth,  and  washed,  and 
anointed  himself,  and  changed  his  apparel,  and  came 
into  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  worshipped :  then  he 
came  to  his  own  house^;  and  when  he  required,  they 
set  bread  before  him,  and  he  did  eat.  Then  said  his 
servants  unto  him,  What  thing  is  this  that  thou  hast 
done?  Thou  didst  fast  and  weep  for  the  child,  while 
it  was  alive ;  but  when  the  child  was  dead,  thou  didst 
rise  and  eat  bread.  And  he  said,  While  the  child  was 
yet  alive,  I  fasted  and  wept ;  for  I  said,  Who  can  tell 
whether  God  will  be  gracious  to  me,  that  the  child 
may  live?  But  now  he  is  dead,  wherefore  should  I 
fast  ?  can  I  bring  him  back  again  ?  I  shall  go  to  him, 
but  he  shall  not  return  to  me.  2  SAM.  12  : 15-23. 

The  angel  of  the  Lord  encampeth  round  about  them 
that  fear  him,  and  delivereth  them.     PSA.  34 : 7. 

For  he  shall  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee,  to 
keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways.  PSA.  91 : 11. 

And  he  shall  send  his  angels  with  a  great  sound 
of  a  trumpet,  and  they  shall  gather  together  his  elect 
from  the  four  winds,  from  one  end  of  heaven  to  the 
other.  MATT.  24:31. 

Likewise,  I  say  unto  you,  There  is  joy  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  angels  of  God  over  one  sinner  that  repent- 
eth.  LUKE  15  : 10. 

Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits,  sent  forth  to 
minister  for  them'  who  shall  be  heirs  of  salvation? 
HEB.  1 : 14. 


SCRIPTURAL   ILLUSTRATIONS.  257 


DISCOURSE  VI. 

Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wil- 
derness, to  be  tempted  of  the  devil.  MATT.  4:1. 

The  enemy  that  sowed  them  is  the  devil ;  the  har- 
vest is  the  end  of  the  world  ;  and  the  reapers  are  the 
angels.  The  Son  of  man  shall  send  forth  his  angels, 
and  they  shall  gather  out  of  his  kingdom  all  things 
that  offend,  and  them  which  do  iniquity.  MATT. 
13:39,41. 

Then  shall  he  say  also  unto  them  on  the  left  hand, 
Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into  everlasting  fire,  pre- 
pared for  the  devil  and  his  angels.  MATT.  25  : 41. 

And  in  the  synagogue  there  was  a  man  which  had 
a  spirit  of  an  unclean  devil,  and  cried  out  with  a  loud 
voice,  saying,  Let  us  alone ;  what  have  we  to  do  with 
thee,  thou  Jesus  of  Nazareth?  art  thou  come  to  destroy 
us  ?  I  know  thee  who  thou  art :  the  Holy  One  of  God. 
LUKE  4: 33,  34. 

Those  by  the  way-side  are  they  that  hear ;  then 
cometh  the  devil,  and  taketh  away  the  word  out  of 
their  hearts,  lest  they  should  believe  and  be  saved. 
LUKE  8  : 12. 

But  he,  knowing  their  thoughts,  said  unto  them, 
Every  kingdom  divided  against  itself  is  brought  to 
desolation ;  and  a  house  divided  against  a  house,  fall- 
eth.  If  Satan  also  be  divided  against  himself,  how 
shall  his  kingdom  stand?  because  ye  say  that  I  cast 
out  devils  through  Beelzebub.  LUKE  11 : 17,  18. 

Ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil,  and  the  lusts  of 
your  father  ye  will  do :  he  was  a  murderer  from  the 


258  ASTRONOMICAL  DISCOURSES. 

beginning,  and  abode  not  in  the  truth,  because  there 
is  no  truth  in  him.  "When  he  speaketh  a  lie.  he  speak- 
eth  of  his  own :  for  he  is  a  liar,  and  the  father  of  it. 
JOHX  8  : 44. 

And  supper  being  ended,  the  devil  having  now 
put  into  the  heart  of  Judas  Iscariot,  Simon's  son,  to 
betray  him.  JOHN  13  : 2. 

But  Peter  said,  Ananias,  why  hath  Satan -filled 
thy  heart  to  lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  keep  back 
part  of  the  price  of  the  land  ?  ACTS  5  : 3. 

To  open  their  eyes,  and  to  turn  them  from  dark- 
ness to  light,  and  from  the  power  of  Satan  unto  God, 
that  they  may  receive  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  inherit- 
ance among  them  which  are  sanctified  by  faith  that  is 
in  me.  ACTS  26  : 18. 

And  the  God  of  peace  shall  bruise  Satan  under 
your  feet  shortly.  The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
be  with  you.  Amen.  ROM.  16  :  20. 

Lest  Satan  should  get  an  advantage  of  us :  for  we 
are  not  ignorant  of  his  devices.  2  COR.  2:11. 

In  whom  the  god  of  this  world  hath  blinded  the 
minds  of  them  which  believe  not,  lest  the  light  of  the 
glorious  gospel  of  Christ,  who  is  the  image  of  God, 
should  shine  unto  them.  2  COB.  4  : 4. 

Wherein  in  time  past  ye  walked  according  to  the 
course  of  this  world,  according  to  the  prince  of  the 
power  of  the  air,  the  spirit  that  now  worketh  in  the 
children  of  disobedience.  EPH.  2  : 2. 

Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God.  that  ye  may  be 
able  to  stand  against  the  wiles  of  the  devil.  For  we 
wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  prin- 
cipalities, against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the 


SCRIPTURAL   ILLUSTRATIONS.  259 

darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual  wickedness 
in  high  places.  EPH.  6  : 11,  12. 

For  some  are  already  turned  aside  after  Satan. 
1  TIM.  5  : 15. 

Forasmuch  then  as  the  children  are  partakers  of 
flesh  and  blood,  he  also  himself  likewise  took  part  of 
the  same ;  that  through  death  he  might  destroy  him 
that  had  the  power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil.  HEB. 
2:14. 

Submit  yourselves  therefore  to  God.  Resist  the 
devil,  and  he  will  flee  from  you.  JAMES  4  :  7. 

Be  sober,  be  vigilant ;  because  your  adversary  the 
devil,  as  a  roaring  lion,  walketh  about,  seeking  whom 
he  may  devour :  whom  resist  steadfast  in  the  faith, 
knowing  that  the  same  afflictions  are  accomplished  in 
your  brethren  that  are  in  the  world.  1  PET.  5  : 8,  9. 

He  that  committeth  sin  is  of  the  devil ;  for  the 
devil  sinneth  from  the  beginning.  For  this  purpose 
the  Son  of  God  was  manifested,  that  he  might  destroy 
the  works  of  the  devil. 

In  this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest,  and  the 
children  of  the  devil :  whosoever  doeth  not  righteous- 
ness is  not  of  God,  neither  he  that  loveth  not  his 
brother.  1  JOHN  3  :  8,  10. 

Ye  are  of  God,  little  children,  and  have  overcome 
them ;  because  greater  is  he  that  is  in  you,  than  he 
that  is  in  the  world.  1  JOHN  4  : 4. 

And  the  angels  which  kept  not  their  first  estate, 
but  left  their  own  habitation,  he  hath  reserved  in  ever- 
lasting chains  under  darkness  unto  the  judgment  of 
the  great  day.  JUDE  6. 

He  that  overcometh,  the  same  shall  be  clothed  in 


260  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

white  raiment ;  and  I  will  not  blot  out  his  name  out 
of  the  book  of  life,  but  I  will  confess  his  name  before 
my  Father,  and  before  his  angels.  REV.  3:5. 

And  there  was  war  in  heaven :  Michael  and  his 
angels  fought  against  the  dragon ;  and  the  dragon 
fought  and  his  angels,  and  prevailed  not:  neither 
was  their  place  found  any  more  in  heaven.  And  the 
great  dragon  was  cast  out,  that  old  serpent,  called  the 
devil,  and  Satan,  which  deceiveth  the  whole  world :  he 
was  cast  out  into  the  earth,  and  his  angels  were  cast 
out  with  him.  Therefore  rejoice,  ye  heavens,  and  ye 
that  dwell  in  them.  Woe  to  the  inhabiters  of  the 
earth  and  of  the  sea !  for  the  devil  is  come  down  unto 
you,  having  great  wrath,  because  he  knoweth  that  he 
hath  but  a  short  time.  REV.  12  :  7-9,  12. 

And  he  laid  hold  on  the  dragon,  that  old  serpent, 
which  is  the  devil,  and  Satan,  and  bound  him  a  thou- 
sand years.  And  when  the  thousand  years  are  ex- 
pired, Satan  shall  be  loosed  out  of  his  prison.  And 
the  devil  that  deceived  them  was  cast  into  the  lake 
of  fire  and  brimstone,  where  the  beast  and  the  false 
prophet  are,  and  shall  be  tormented  day  and  night, 
for  ever  and  ever.  REV.  20  :  2,  7,  10. 

DISCOURSE  VII. 

Therefore,  whosoever  heareth  these  sayings  of 
mine,  and  doeth  them,  I  will  liken  him  unto  a  wise 
man,  which  built  his  house  upon  a  rock :  and  the  rain 
descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew, 
and  beat  upon  that  house ;  and  it  fell  not :  for  it  was 
founded  upon  a  rock.  And  every  one  that  heareth 


SCRIPTURAL  ILLUSTRATIONS.  261 

these  sayings  of  mine,  and  doeth  them  not,  shall  be 
likened  unto  a  foolish  man,  which  built  his  house  upon 
the  sand:  and  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods 
came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house ; 
and  it  fell :  and  great  was  the  fall  of  it.  MATT. 
7:24-27. 

At  that  time  Jesus  answered  and  said,  I  thank 
thee,  0  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  because 
thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent, 
and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes.  MATT.  11 :  25. 

Then  shall  ye  begin  to  say,  We  have  eaten  and 
drunk  in  thy  presence,  and  thou  hast  taught  in  our 
streets.  But  he  shall  say,  I  tell  you,  I  know  you  not 
whence  ye  are:  depart  from  me,  all  ye  workers  of 
iniquity.  LUKE  13  : 26,  27. 

For  not  the  hearers  of  the  law  are  just  before 
God,  but  the  doers  of  the  law  shall  be  justified.  ROM. 
2:13. 

And  I,  brethren,  when  I  came  to  you,  came  not 
with  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom,  declaring 
unto  you  the  testimony  of  God.  For  I  determined 
not  to  know  any  thing  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ 
and  him  crucified.  And  my  speech  and  my  preach- 
ing was  not  with  enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom,  but 
in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of  power.  That 
your  faith  should  not  stand  in  the  wisdom  of  men,  but 
in  the  power  of  God.  Now  we  have  received  not  the 
spirit  of  the  world,  but  the  spirit  which  is  of  God ; 
that  we  might  know  the  things  that  are  freely  given 
to  us  of  God.  Which  things  also  we  speak,  not  in 
the  words  which  man's  wisdom  teacheth,  but  which 
the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth :  comparing  spiritual  things 


262  ASTRONOMICAL   DISCOURSES. 

with  spiritual.  But  the  natural  man  recciveth  not 
the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  for  they  are  foolish- 
ness unto  him:  neither  can  he  know  them,  because 
they  are  spiritually  discerned.  1  COB.  2:1,  2,  4,  5, 
12-14. 

For  the  wisdom  of  this  world  is  foolishness  with 
God.  1  COR.  3  : 19. 

For  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  in  word,  but  in 
power.  1  COR.  4  :  20. 

Forasmuch  as  ye  are  manifestly  declared  to  be  the 
epistle  of  Christ  ministered  by  us,  written  not  with 
ink,  but  with  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God ;  not  in 
tables  of  stone,  but  in  fleshly  tables  of  the  heart.  Xot 
that  we  are  sufficient  of  ourselves  to  think  any  thing 
as  of  ourselves ;  but  our  sufficiency  is  of  God ;  wlio 
also  hath  made  us  able  "ministers  of  the- new  testa- 
ment ;  not  of  the  letter,  but  of  the  spirit :  for  the  let- 
ter killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life.  2  COR.  3  : 3,  5,  6. 

That  the  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Fa- 
ther of  glory,  may  give  unto  you  the  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  revelation  in  the  knowledge  of  him :  the  eyes  of 
your  understanding  being  enlightened ;  that  ye  may 
know  what  is  the  hope  of  his  calling,  and  what  the 
riches  of  the  glory  of  his  inheritance  in  the  saints, 
and  what  is  the  exceeding  greatness  of  his  power  to 
us-ward  who  believe,  according  to  the  working  of  his 
mighty  power.  EPH.  1 : 17-19. 

And  you  hath  he  quickened,  who  were  dead  in 
trespasses  and  sins.  For  we  are  his  workmanship, 
created  in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works.  EPH. 
2:1,10. 

For  our  gospel  came  not  unto  you  in  word  only, 


SCRIPTURAL  ILLUSTRATIONS.  263 

but  also  in  power,  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  in 
much  assurance.  1  THES.  1  : 5. 

Qf  his  own  will  begat  he  us  with  the  word  of 
trutff,  that  we  should  be  a  kind  of  first-fruits  of  his 
creatures. 

But  be  ye  doers  of  the  word,  and  not  hearers  only, 
deceiving  yourselves.  For  if  any  be  a  hearer  of  the 
word,  and  not  a  doer,  he  is  like  unto  a  man  beholding 
his  natural  face  in  a  glass:  for  he  beholdeth'' himself, 
and  goeth  his  way,  and  straightway  forgetteth  what 
manner  of  man  he  was.  But  whoso  looketh  into  the 
perfect  law  of  liberty,  and  continueth  therein,  he 
being  not  a  forgetful  hearer,  but  a  doer  of  the  work, 
this  man  shall  be  blessed  in  his  deed.  JAMES  1  : 18, 
22-25. 

But  ye  are  a  chosen  generation,  a  royal  priesthood, 
a  holy  nation,  a  peculiar  people,  that  ye  should  show 
forth  the  praises  of  him  who  hath  called  you  out  of 
darkness  into  his  marvellous  light.  1  PET.  2  :  9. 

But  ye  have  an  unction  from  the  Holy  One,  and 
ye  know  all  things. 

But  the  anointing  which  ye  have  received  of  him 
abideth  in  you,  and  ye  need  not  that  any  man  teach 
you:  but  as  the  same  anointing  teacheth  you  of  all 
things,  and  is  truth,  and  is  no  lie,  and  even  as  it  hath 
taught  you,  ye  shall  abide  in  him.  1  JOHN  2  :  20,  27. 


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